


Only the Fallen May Rise

by JessicaPendragon



Series: Non Canon Keela Lavellan [2]
Category: Dragon Age, Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Drama, Elvhen Pantheon, F/M, Gen, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-25
Updated: 2015-08-24
Packaged: 2018-03-09 02:12:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 37,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3232436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JessicaPendragon/pseuds/JessicaPendragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Months after the final battle, Solas reaches out for help in completing his quest. Keela must make a decision between changing the world to restore her people or forging a new path for all. Neither choice is without consequences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Somehow she ends up here and wonders what possible comfort could be found in this place. It’s where he left her. Perhaps it’s fitting then, for they are all gone now.

Keela still clutches the report to her chest, the paper moist from being in her palm for so long. Heavy feet trudge into the glade aided by memory only for her eyes are devoured by sorrow. Even though it was hours ago, she remembers Josephine’s horrified gasp as her gaze scanned the parchment in hand. She remembers Cullen’s pity, Leliana’s rage. She remembers the pain of reality grabbing her heart and squeezing.

The news spread quickly through Skyhold and her companions tried to offer their condolences. Varric stumbled out words, for once not so eloquent with his craft. Iron Bull swore vengeance and disappeared into the forge. Cole practically cried out at seeing her pain and she hurried away before he offered something she wouldn’t be able to refuse. She appreciates them, but she is alone in this. Not even Sera, who seemed to want to crush her and run away at the same time, could possibly understand.

Somehow she manages to alleviate their worries, or demand her space to come to terms with these events. Somehow she ends up here and wonders what possible comfort could be found in this place.

It’s where he left her. Perhaps it’s fitting then, for they are all gone now.

She collapses in front of the small pond and drops her hands into her lap. The words are smeared from her abuse yet the message is clear enough. Corypheus is defeated and she has failed. Her clan is no more, murdered to the last man, woman and child. While she saved the future, villains destroyed her past. She is the most powerful person in all of Thedas and it mattered not to the swipe of an unknown blade, the tip of a stranger’s arrow.

Her mind replays all the times she wanted to escape the clutches of the clan. Adventure waited just beyond the ring of aravels and halla. She took the shortest routes to adulthood, chose the smallest vallaslin, so she could be free to decide her own fate. She had raged against being made First until it gave her the chance to spy on the conclave. Now she is First to ashes, Keeper to the dead.

She lets the paper fall from her fingers and glide into the water. Keela leans over, glancing down into the calm water at her own reflection. Seeing her unmarked skin breaks the dam of her tears. She had been so eager to be rid of the vallaslin, rid of them. She would do anything to take it all back.

Keela slams her fists into the shallow water as a cry rips through her throat. She screams from sorrow, but vengeance flares within her soul. Fire bursts to life, red flames turning into blazing white suns in her grip. The water hisses and ripples away, but it can only escape by becoming steam above her head. She screams and screams, tears evaporating on her skin as the water begins to boil. The fire travels up her arms, down her legs into the ground and into her lungs, but she cannot stop. She smells the grass begin to burn and does not care.

She weeps for her people, but she has never had a gentle spirit. Fire is her element- wild, untamed, the ability to destroy or cleanse. It consumes her now and through its fury she sees the future. She doesn’t pray to the old gods to save her, for they have never done so before. The Inquisitor makes a promise whether they listen or not. She will finish what she has already begun, no matter the cost.

Corypheus wanted to watch the world burn. She will make it shine.

The report catches fire on the boiling waves and a wicked laugh bursts through the rage and grief. She wonders if she could burn up with it and perhaps she will. She’s never expended her magic in such a manner and can feel the edges of unconsciousness creeping near. So she pushes even harder, straining her powers and voice with a growing desperation. Everything is white and everything is burning. She can hear the voices of demons attracted by her light, but she will not give them the satisfaction of her swirling emotions. They will not have her, only the void will.

The fire snaps out with a whoosh as something inside her rips. She gasps, falling to her side. Keela listens to the crackling of embers around her as she tries to catch her breath. Her mana is spent and replaced with a hollow numbness like she has never felt before. She’s expelled too much too fast and exhaustion swoops over her with a gentle blanket. But she welcomes it, welcomes the black that closes around her eyes and takes her away from this wretched, waking world.

There’s no more fire, no more grass or water. There’s smooth, cold stone against her cheek and a musty smell like an unused library. Keela opens her eyes and finds a mosaic of tile glittering in what sunlight peeks through leaves above. Her face lifts and takes in a familiar sight thought never to be seen again. She’s laying in the empty Well of Sorrows. Pieces of the eluvian are scattered everywhere and catch the light like fallen stars. She rises, slowly, to sit back on her heels.

How did she get here? Where had she been before? Her mind still reels from the outburst of her magic. The temple is so quiet. Everything glows like she is looking through stained glass. No birds chirp above and nothing rustles below. The calm is surreal, like a dream. And then she remembers it is just that.

Her throat burns like a desert, her eyes ache as if she’s stared at the sun for too long. The memories make her double over and she wishes she could purge them from her being. She cannot escape the truth even in the Fade. They are all gone.

There is a noise around her, quiet like rain falling against metal. The pieces of glass are shifting. They’re being pulled towards the giant eluvian frame, running over the ground and each other like insects hurrying to their nest. She watches as they grasp onto the empty backing and take their former places.

Keela is drawn to the mirror as well, her broken body finding its feet. She steps closer as the last piece snaps into place. For a moment nothing happens until light begins to fill the cracks. It races from the bottom to the top, moving quick and erratic like forked lightning. When it reaches the apex the lines start to burn brighter and brighter until they blind her. She feels a soft, whistling wind reach out to caress her skin. Quiet returns to the Temple of Mythal with its passing.

The eluvian is shining, intact. It invites the Inquisitor to enter, but she can only take one step before something comes _through._

He wears the same threadbare uniform he wore to the final battle, the ever present jawbone hitting against his chest as he slides towards her. Keela’s heart thrums in her ears louder than thunder and she presses her hands against her head, fingers gripping hair, to drown it out. She doesn’t realize she’s falling until she feels her knees hit the ground and his arms stop her from injury.

Blind hands clutch at his clothing as she buries her face into the warm crook of his neck. His touch is gentle but firm as he rubs her back, runs fingers through her short hair and soothes the ache shivering in her soul. She has no more tears but she’s still aflame inside and he holds her without words. Part of her wants him to speak, to say something so she can hear his voice again, but she takes more comfort in his stillness. He is a force, a structure to hide in and slowly rebuild herself.

And after a time, her breath flows out evenly. A stampeding heart slows to a canter beneath her breast and she can finally think without the pain of loss gripping her mind. Her claws return to fingers and spread out against his back, around the nape of his neck. Keela doesn’t open her eyes again for fear of the dream blinking out of existence, but she lifts her head so their cheeks are touching.

She wants to ask if this only a dream or if he has finally returned to her. The question almost slips from her lips before she decides against it. It doesn’t matter. He is here. Whatever this is, she wants to live in it for as long as possible.

“Your vengeance trembles through the entirety of the Fade,” he says and she cherishes the way his voice dances against her skin. “Vhenan, I am so sorry.”

A sharp seething coils up inside her at the familiar title and she cannot keep the edge of it from her voice as she replies. Her heart aches from abandonment. He chose to leave, the others didn't, but they are gone all the same. “Where were you?”

His jaw clenches against hers and she can imagine the pained slope of his eyebrows. A sigh moves through them both. “I am here now.”

“For how long?”

He doesn’t answer, only holds her closer. Keela is instead glad for his silence. She doesn’t want to be reminded of time for it only exists in the real world, and there everyone she loves has left. For the moment she is untethered. She can let the weight go for she is somewhere grief withers without something solid to quench it.

With eyes still boarded up, she lifts herself from the cradle of his embrace. She doesn’t need a map to find his lips and returns to them with a feeling of coming home. Keela rests against him for a moment, soaking in the velvet touch, before her mouth moves against his.

He does not resist. It is her dream, after all. His hands mold against the small of her back and pushes them closer together. He returns her affection like he did in the Fade soaked snow of Haven and with her eyes shut she can picture them there. When everything still shined with newness, devoid of scratches made from future tragedies.

His touch restores her, fills the empty void of loneliness inside. She remembers other caresses in the safety of his hold. Her Keeper’s strong fingers clutching her shoulder as they braved the Fade for the first time together. The spray of water as she splashed in a low pool with her friends when the clan traveled to a new home. Smoke and song wrapping themselves around her as they sang under the stars. The sharp sting of the vallaslin, a warm hand offering support against the needle. His fingers wrapped in hers under the starlight.

They are all gone, but they are not lost.

He ends the kiss and rests his forehead against hers. “I have missed you,” he admits, although she wishes he wouldn’t.

“You never promised you would stay, so why does it hurt so much? How can I go on in the face of all this…this loss?”

“Look at me, vhenan.”

“No,” she says, not caring if her tone is childish. “You’ll disappear.”

He chuckles like he always does when she delights him. “How could I leave when I am already gone?”

She feels his hands move to cup her face, his fingertips brushing the places her markings once touched. “The People have wronged each other since the time of legend. It should be no surprise that others find it so easy to wrong them as well. They have grown weak. What has happened was allowed to happen.”

He kisses her closed lids, the high bones of her cheeks, the slight bump on the bridge of her nose. “But the gods have awoken to the cries of the People. They see that there is strength when all has been taken away. They have been given hope, in no small part thanks to you. You remind them of the ancient elves of Arlathan before the world was tainted. Your indomitable spirit calls to them, as it always has to me. You grieve, rightfully so, but your heart burns with purpose beneath the despair. A purpose that will never submit.”

“I wanted…I wanted…” _for it all to end_ , she thinks, but it seems wrong now.

“No,” he says, the veil between her thoughts and words nothing to him. His voice fills with a passion that makes her breathless. “You want to scorch away the pain of the world, and you will. I was wrong to hide this from you when you have always been our salvation. You are the future of the Elvhen. The gods have heard your cries, and they will answer. The world will tremble before us, before you, and your pain will not be forgotten. I promise this.”

“I don’t understand…”

“Will you look at me?”

“I’m afraid,” she says, but opens her eyes regardless. His face is just as she remembers. The dimple in his chin, the long, sharp slant of his ears, the scar above his brow. But his eyes. **His eyes.** They’re filled with black smoke that leaks from the corners like vaporous tears. Keela wants to look away, for something about them makes her feel unworthy, but she is drawn to them like birds pulled towards the south.

She gasps, tightening her grip around his arms even as he starts to slip away. “Solas?”

“No longer.”

He kisses her again, hard and fast. The need is fierce and a new fire fills her veins. They give and take greedily and when she bites his lip between her teeth, his growl shakes the ground beneath her feet. She feels like she’s floating above in the stars and buried deep within the folds of the earth. She is everywhere and nowhere, and anywhere she reaches out he is there. She feels as small as the ant, as expansive as the heavens.

The dream starts to shatter and drift away like leaves in the breeze. The black of his eyes spreads, surrounds her and enters her mouth, her ears, her eyes. It consumes her, but she is no longer afraid. She is something _more._

“Find me,” she hears him whisper before the dream dies.

Keela awakes to the smoldering ruin of her making. The glade is half covered in shadow as the sun now sits lower in the sky. Burnt grass crinkles beneath her cheek and when she sighs a puff of ash rises from the ground. The Inquisitor lifts herself up to survey the damage. The peaceful space is mostly intact save for the area directly around her. The pond is empty and while other places are scorched, some places shimmer like glass from the immense heat of her power.

She gives it all a cursory thought for her mind still lingers on the dream. It felt so real. Keela wishes with all her heart that is was, but such things are for naive children. She begins to raise a hand to her lips, which feel swollen despite logic, when she realizes there’s something in her hand. Fingers uncurl to reveal a sharp edged piece of the eluvian. She forgets how to breathe. It was more than a dream.

When she brings it up to her face it is not her eyes that she sees reflecting back.

 _Find me,_ his voice haunts the wind.

Keela makes a fist around the mirror and lets it bite into skin. Blood seeps through the cracks in her grip, sealing their fate. _I will_.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I think you need to see it through as well.” _For all our sakes_ , she can hear him say with the careful understanding in his eyes. She will find the answers she needs and return with answers of her own. For the both of them.

The sun barely peeks above the horizon when Keela returns to Skyhold. There are few soldiers lining the battlements that snap to attention as she walks across the long bridge and she is glad the hour is so early. She wants to escape to her room and wipe the ash and tears from her face before too many Inquisition members witness her disheveled state.  

As she nears the gate, Keela notices a solitary figure waiting for her. It is difficult to recognize him at first, with his armor and cloak removed, but something hitches within her breast when she realizes who awaits her. Her eager steps slow and when she can see the honey color of his eyes, she looks everywhere but at their depths.

“Keela,” Cullen whispers with care. “Are you all right? You look…”

She can only imagine what a sight she is and self-consciously runs fingers through her dark hair to try and untangle its knots. He moves closer to her and stops at a comfortable distance. He has always been aware of her boundaries like she is as easy to read as a map. It brought her solace before, but now the idea settles sharp in her gut.

“Keela?”  

“I’m fine,” she lies and is sure he can tell. She clears her throat and tries again. “I…I…”

He steps over the line from commander to companion and wraps her in a soft embrace. Keela stiffens in his arms, fists clenching at her sides.

“I kept thinking I should follow you, make sure you were safe. I know you wanted to grieve alone, but I was worried for you. This is…I can’t imagine your pain and I wish there was something I could do. Know I am here for you.”

Keela squeezes her eyes shut. The piece of the eluvian weighs heavy within her robe, but it’s the memory of  _him_  that drags her down. She had kissed him like he hadn’t broken every promise ever made, like she still loved him. She had thought it was a dream, but it wasn’t. It wasn’t.  

Her arms shake and she can’t stop a rasping gasp from escaping her mouth. Cullen moves back, releasing her quickly. She doesn’t look up at him, but she can hear the concern in his voice.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have-” There is a sadness there too for how she reacts to his touch and she wants to tell him to never let her go, but when she opens her mouth to speak she feels Solas’ lips against hers, his tongue slipping inside to steal her words.

She takes a step away from Cullen and lets her nails bite into the wound the jagged piece of glass made a few hours ago. The pain gives her clarity and washes away the other aches within.

“I need to speak with everyone in the Inner Circle immediately. I would like to make myself presentable first so have someone wake them up and meet me in the War Room within twenty minutes.” She sees him open his mouth, but shakes her head. “I will explain then. Please, Commander.”  

Cullen straightens and she can feel the awkward pause between them. “As you wish, Inquisitor.”

She moves around him, escaping before either of them are capable of speaking further. Escaping the notion of how she hates that title coming from his lips as much as she did when Solas spoke it.  

Keela wastes little time in her quarters. Cool water slaps against her face and her basin fills with dark soot and blood. No matter how hard she scrubs, she cannot remove his touch from her skin. A brush tames the mangled mess of her hair. A few months ago she shaved the other side of her head and likes to pull the remaining parts atop her crown into a growing tail. It is the way Solas wore it once in a dream and it felt like a way to mourn. Now it feels like something else. She wraps a clean cloth around her injured hand and changes into fresh robes before descending back down the stairs to the War Room.  

The heavy doors are thrown open and she hesitates only a moment to draw in a steadying breath before walking in. Her Inner Circle, her companions and advisors, are positioned on the other side of the table in various stages of wakefulness. Sera all but lays across the Ferelden portion of the map, her face buried in Lake Calenhad. Bull leans against the wall with his head tucked into his chin, but when he sees her, his gaze is alert and scanning for clues.  

“I’ll have you know I am impossible to deal with if I don’t get my needed sleep,” Dorian grumbles even though he and Vivienne appear perfectly poised and groomed like it is midday.  

Varric pulls on Sera’s leg and the elf shoots up. “Who-da-what?”

“What is this about, Inquisit-ahh,” Josephine covers up her mouth and blushing cheeks as a yawn breaks through her words. “Oh, please do forgive me.” Keela can still see the ghost of the other woman’s tears. She should say something to assuage Josephine’s guilt over her people, but she isn’t sure she has the energy now. She walks to the edge of the map and steeples her fingers against it.  

“If this is about your clan-”

“No,” Keela interrupts Leliana. She feels the loss all over again, but pushes it down. “Not entirely.”

“Boss, what happened-”

“ _Will_  be dealt with,” she says, words edged with venom. “But there is more. I went…I saw…”

She lets out a frustrated sigh and pushes back from the table. Keela pulls the eluvian piece from her pocket and gazes into its shimmering surface. There is no one awaiting her this time, just a mist filled world doused in colors of grey and green that seems somewhat familiar.  

“I met with Solas,” she announces and their sudden silence pushes against her with force. She catches the way Cullen’s grip on his sword pommel tightens, but dares not look him in the eye. No one seems sure what to say against this announcement. Even Sera thinks better than to speak.  

It is Cullen that breaks the quiet and she wishes it was anyone else. “What happened?”

“It was in the Fade, but when I woke this was in my hand.” She holds up the glass. “It’s part of an eluvian. Either he was there with me and left before I woke or somehow was able to pass this along through our dream.”

“My dear, that is not possible,” Vivienne remarks.  

“When has the impossible ever stopped her?” Varric replies.  

Keela shakes her head. “As interesting as it is, it’s not important. Solas told me about a reckoning coming, something to do with the Elvhen gods. By the way he made it sound, it is an upheaval that will influence more than my people alone. Considering we know at least one god exists, he might be trying to find more of them, but that is only a guess. And he wants me to find him.”

“Do you think that’s wise?” Josephine speaks what must be on everyone’s minds.

Keela spins the glass in her fingers. “No.”

Varric gives a quick laugh that shakes his shoulders. “But you’re going to do it anyways.”  

She palms the piece, squeezing it tight but careful this time. “Yes. I cannot claim this to be official Inquisition business. I think we all know it is…of a more personal nature, so I won’t-”

“Where are we going and when do we leave?” Bull asks as he pushes off the wall. Keela watches as they straighten and look at her with supportive gazes, ready and willing.  

Tears prickle at the backs of her eyes and she can only offer them a thankful smile. “Back to the Temple of Mythal. It is where we met in the Fade and may hold some answers. Go and get as much rest as you can. Meet me at the stables at noon and I will decide who rides with me. Advisors, please stay.”

Keela waits until the large group filters down to three. “Leliana, do you still have any eyes on Abelas, the lead sentinel from the temple?”

“Not recent. The last report was he and a few others remained somewhere within the Arbor Wilds.”

“Please send as many scouts as you can spare to find him. I would like him to join me at the temple. I’m sure he’ll decline, but I could use his knowledge if he is willing.”

“I will see what I can do.”

“What do you require from me?” Josephine asks.

“The next Arlathvhen draws near. I need the Keepers to see the Temple of Mythal and to hear whatever I discover on this mission. There was so much history there and I barely scratched the surface. Write to each of the clans and ask for them to move the gathering there.”

“Do you think they’ll actually listen?” Leliana questions.

“I am a Dalish elf made leader of men, savior of the world, marked by the Fade and unmarked of my vallaslin, and the last of my clan. I think they might be eager to answer my summons, if from nothing else but curiosity.”

“I am sure it will be good to use as many elven envoys as possible, among supplying them with a few goods to ease any tension.” Josephine clears her throat, fingers tightening on the board she holds. “And I will make sure everything goes smoothly, I swear it.”

“I know. Commander.” She glances up at him finally and he looks every bit the noble leader as he always does on the field. Keela is grateful for his professionalism, although it pulls at some twisted string of her heart. “Wycome…I, my clan-”

She takes a breath and watches his eyes soften. “What those monsters did cannot go unchallenged. They were under Inquisition protection and I…did anyone bury them? Are they all truly gone, are the artifacts stolen or destroyed, and-”

“Inquisitor.” His voice is gentle and she does not hate the name when he says it like that.  

“The clans will most likely disown me further for it as I use a shemlen force to tackle this, but they would stand by and do nothing. I cannot. I need them avenged!”

The word echoes harsh against the stone walls and Cullen waits until quiet settles back over them to speak. “I will send a few squadrons to Wycome to investigate this matter. If we do nothing, it will send the wrong message that we do not support nor care for our allies. Perhaps The Iron Bull could be sent as well? His training would be useful during interrogations.”

Keela lets out a breath full of relief and gratitude. She knows he will see it done to whatever end.  

“Is there anything else?” Leliana asks.

“Is that not enough? Don’t you have a religion to run too?”

The spymaster gives a short laugh. “You are right. We will tend to these matters straight away.”

“Thank you.” Keela wants to turn and go, catch a few hours of rest herself even though it seems more likely Corypheus will return than her eyes will shut for more than a few minutes. But there is something else that needs to be done.

“Commander, a moment?” she hears herself say. Leliana and Josephine breeze by and she notes how they keep their eyes bowed. The soon to be Divine gives her a small encouragement before closing the doors and the room seems to shrink tight around Keela.  

She takes a moment to compose herself before facing him fully. She does not shy from his gaze now, for she owes him at least this. Cullen moves from around the table and stands at its corner only a few long steps away. The promise of something more flits in the air between them and has for some time. She can see it, imagines all of Skyhold can see it as well, and to deny it anymore is absurd.  

Keela is always careful to guard herself around Cullen. She will not do to another person what Solas did to her. She will not give and take in equal measures and leave someone torn in the wake of her own indecision. It is a crueler fate than never reaching for them at all. She will give her next lover all of her heart or nothing at all, but since Solas smashed it into fragments months ago, she still has yet to find all the pieces.

Cullen has been a faithful friend, but she would be blind indeed to not notice how he smiles more at the sight of her, or how his eyes linger upon her skin when he thinks she can’t see. And she would be a fool to not notice how she has started to return his smiles when he walks into a room or how her heart warms if he accidentally brushes against her.  

She knows he will never do anything to ruin their companionship despite what feelings he may hold for her. He will let her be the one to leap when and if she is ever ready and his unlimited patience and kind spirit sing to her battered soul. Cullen is a gentle wind while Solas was the storm. Keela could be happy in his sweet embrace. And yet…and yet…

“What are you thinking?” she asks with no idea why. She just needs to say something to break the silence.  

“I am wondering if this is what you truly want.”

Is it? Keela runs her fingers over the fading map, retracing steps in her mind. “He said  _no matter what happens_  before he left, which always made me believe this day would eventually come. Before the last battle, he promised to tell me the truth and I have been bound by his words, even more so by the ones he never said. Time will eventually set me free, I know, but now…I think I need to see this through.”

“I think you need to see it through as well.”  _For all our sakes_ , she can hear him say with the careful understanding in his eyes. She will find the answers she needs and return with answers of her own. For the both of them. 

He clears his throat. “You should get some rest as well. I’m sure you have no intention of wasting time on the roads and will need the strength. I will see to making preparations for Wycome at once.”

“Cullen.” Keela catches his arm as he walks passed her. “Thank you for…for…”

He reaches up to give her hand a squeeze. “Always.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She sees every Lavellan kin lost in their faces, pieces on a board sacrificed with no thought and little gain. How many more will suffer for the sake of another? She will allow this no longer.

They set out a few minutes passed noon. Keela is an arrow aimed at their target’s heart as she takes them straight through the harsh mountains. They travel the many hours in mostly silence, taking few breaks, and it's not until they can see the Dales far below do they begin to slow. She tugs her hood close to her face as wind sweeps cold and bitter through the passes, but she will weather whatever she must to see this through. Cassandra still sits high within the saddle, but Dorian slumps with a grimace behind his mustache.

"Dorian, it's not too late to return-"

"No, no, just reminiscing about how you take me to the most marvelous of places. I forgot how wonderful it is to trudge through the bitter mountains atop a great, drooling beast." His mount flicks his mane back and forth in protest.

"Are you all right, Cole?"

The spirit stares at the head of his Ferelden steed. "She wants to run free through the mountains. It smells like home. But there might be treats where they’re going. She likes the oats seeped with something sweet."

Keela lets out a little laugh, rubbing a hand down the neck of her hart. "Let's get a little further down and out of the wind before we make camp for the night. Then she can have all the treats she wants."

They travel until the sun dips behind the horizon and make camp tucked within the mountain. The plains are just within reach, perhaps a half a day's ride until flowing grass replaces dirt and stone. Keela takes her time combing the stains of travel from her mount’s fur before grabbing a bowl of Cassandra's soup. It settles warm within and mixes with the exhaustion already clinging. Sleep did not come easily, as she guessed. Expelling so much of her power the day before did little to help as well.

Keela all but crawls into the tent as soon as Cassandra manages to pound the last stake into the ground. The Seeker does not mention her little effort to assist, merely slides her bedroll inside and begins unclasping the multitude of pieces to her armor. Keela only bothers removing her outer robe before plummeting into her favorite blanket.

"Inquisitor?" Cassandra says just as sleep is about to take her away.

Keela moans into her pillow. "Yes?"

"I am...not very skilled at these sorts of things. But if you should wish to discuss anything, please know I will do my best to listen. I feel responsible for what has happened. I was the one to vouch for the apostate. If I had known-"

"That is enough," Keela growls. "There is only one person to blame for any of this. But, I suppose, if he could fool you with his sincerity, then it makes me feel a little better about myself."

"Yes, how reassuring," Cassandra says with a small amount of grumbling.

Keela closes her eyes and listens to the fire dying outside. Wind sweeps by in short bursts to rustle against the side of the tent and she feels the same inside, rippling and shaking with what is to come. Her last time sharing a tent with Cassandra dances across her closed lids. The cooling sand of the Oasis is a sweet balm against the still burning wound in her ribs. A Venatori sword cut through her, almost severing her from the world until Solas pulls her from the edge. If she listens closely, she can hear his broken scream, her name a desperate prayer on his lips. _I feared you were lost_ , he whispers, breath warm on her skin.

But she is lost and not sure how to find her way back to home again. Keela shifts her face against the pillow and looks towards her sleep mate. "Is this like any of the stories you’ve read?"

Cassandra takes her time before replying. "I may have read a tale or two of lovers torn by secrets. The truth comes out regardless, one way or another. In every book, there is always something to keep them apart, that eventually is responsible for bringing them together. Most stories end with understanding and forgiveness if love is true."

"And if it's not?"

Cassandra shifts away, sniffing. "I do not read those types of tales."

Keela laughs and settles back to sleep. If only it were that easy.

On their fourth day of travel, their quiet companionship is broken by a piercing scream. Keela doesn't hesitate to turn the hart towards the sound with the others trailing behind. The plains have slowly melted away to be replaced by green growing up the tall limbs of trees and rolling across the land in waves. When Keela can see a group of people ahead she jumps from her steed and jogs the rest of the way to find cover.

Men in armor surround a stopped cart with living cargo while a line of shackled figures trails behind. Keela can see what caused the commotion. One of the chained members has fallen, most likely exhausted. Soldiers push and pull at the defenseless elf, while the girl next to him is held back by uncaring hands.

"Leave him be!" she screams. The lines of Andruil curl about her face and make her fury all the more potent.

"No good knife ears," a slaver spits as he yanks the fallen to his feet. "Get moving! There's no breaks ‘til sundown."

"Slavers," Cassandra murmurs next to Keela. "With all the rifts open in this area, they were not as present as before. Now they are a much larger problem again."

"I thought Celene promised to hunt them down?"

"I thought so as well."

Anger boils within Keela. So many of them are of her blood. There could be a whole clan trapped within that cage, parceled and packaged to sell to Tevinter with a bow. She sees every Lavellan kin lost in their faces, pieces on a board sacrificed with no thought and little gain. How many more will suffer for the sake of another? She will allow this no longer.

“They are mine,” she snarls and leaps down towards the group. Cassandra whispers fiercely at her back, but Keela throws her hand back to demand they remain.

Two slavers see her approach and unsheathe their weapons. “Stop right there!”

Keela obeys, spreading her fingers at her sides to show she holds no weapon. Her staff remains at her back, forgotten. Every eyes swings to watch her movements, some alert and curious, others amused.

“Well they’re making it easy for us now. Maybe we should just set up shop and let the mongrels come to us.”

A man on horseback trots from the front of the line and faces Keela. In his eyes she can see cunning calculation and watches as he sweeps from her to the trees beyond. By the way the others look to him, he must be their leader. She will save him for last then. “State your business.”

“The law is quite clear what is to be done with slavers in these lands. Release these people now and I will consider granting you a merciful death.”

For a moment there is stillness until laughter sings between the trees and blades of grass. Yet the leader remains still, his eyes analyzing hers. “Who are you?” he asks when his men have quieted.

“My name is Keela Lavellan, but I’m sure you may know me better as the Inquisitor.”

Their laughter and jeers quit and they turn eyes toward their leader. Keela watches his gaze cycle through many thoughts – _Is she truly alone? Could the rumors be true? There are twelve of us, surely she cannot best that many. She would make a prize worth more than a hundred slaves._ Keela can’t help the smile that tugs at the corner of her mouth as she watches greed win above all other concerns.

“Take her, alive if you can!”

Keela opens her palm and feels the mark burst to life within her grasp. Its power soaks into her skin, tingles through her nerves. She throws her hand out to the two approaching men and the smell of ozone burns her nose. A rift opens beneath their feet and for one second they hover there, eyes going wide, before they fall into nothingness. Keela closes the rift and sentences them to whatever fate awaits in the Fade. The remaining soldiers pause, alarmed, but she does not wait for them.

Demons hover against the Veil. They have called to her all her life, but the power that surges through her will not submit. She calls to _them_ now. Two rifts open around one man and a Pride demon’s arms latch on to rip him apart with chuckling glee. Another rift opens above a group of soldiers and a Terror demon drops among them, claws painting the grass red. She flings a few more holes into the Beyond and watches as demons strike against her enemy with precision, never straying close to the captives even once.

When there are only a few remaining, a flick of the wrist sends the demons slipping back into the rifts before they close. Keela lifts her hand high into the air and baths the world in light as the power of the anchor collects above their heads. Whatever soldiers remain are caught within its gras[ and are slowly drawn into the swirling mass above. Their anguished faces burn into her memory, but she only feels a calm purpose and doesn’t stop until only the prisoners and the captain remain.

Keela drops her hand and the power snaps out with a loud crack. She is a wolf licking her lips at fallen prey as she approaches. His horse long since fled, abandoning him on the ground to watch his men disappear. Blood not his own covers half his arm and Keela doesn’t care to guess what mess of a man lays nearby. She keeps her eyes on his and stops when he is close enough to kiss her boots.

“You should have taken my offer,” she says.

“What…what are you?”

Keela lifts her eyes to the captives. Elvhen eyes gaze at her, most too shocked to do anything but stare while some wear looks of horror. Mingled among them, however, is a fire quickly catching and it burns in her veins.

“Revolution.”

She opens a rift within him. She does not look away as he collapses in upon himself, skin ripping and blood pouring. She does not drown out his scream of agony or shy away as he reaches for her. He cannot touch her. When it is over, she closes the rift and then sends ice along the heavy chain connecting the prisoners. With a snap of her fingers it shatters into thousands of pieces.

Keela glances down at her hands. The mark glows quietly in her palm and spots of blood decorate her like bleeding freckles. She touches them, smearing red across her skin as she does.

“Inquisitor…”

Keela is not surprised by Cassandra’s wary look. Dorian lags even farther behind, brows knitting together and hand wrapped around his staff tight enough to turn his knuckles white. Cole materializes at her side and she catches his eyes. For a moment she fears to see something harsh in them, but they are calm, understanding. Like she didn’t just open up the Fade and summon demons to do her biding.

“They are scared of you, but there is hope too. They need something soft to make it stick.”

“Are you really the Inquisitor?”

Keela turns to face the crowd. It is the girl with Andruil’s vallaslin that speaks, feet cautious but eyes curious. Keela takes Cole’s advice and makes herself small, bending down to crouch in the grass with the pretense of wiping her hands. She gives them a warm smile, pulling back the storm clouds in her eyes to something she hopes will soothe.

“Yes.”

“They said you were powerful, but I’ve never seen such magic before. You’re…” The girl shakes her head and Keela cannot blame her. She is not sure herself if there are words to describe what she has done. “I thought you were Dalish?”

“I am.”

“So the rumors are true that you removed it,” says another. It belongs to the older elf once under the slaver’s heel. His gray eyes trace over her bare face. “Mythal’enaste, I did not believe it could be done.”

The elves step closer to her while the few humans collect together by the cart. Keela watches as Cassandra and Dorian shift closer to them and offer aid.

“What should we do now?” a voice asks in the crowd.

“Go back to your clans, your cities. Or there are Inquisition strongholds all around Thedas where you would be welcome.”

“They talk about you in Halamshiral. How you’re the reason Briala can whisper in the Empress’ ear. It’s been different since then,” an unmarked elf her age says, eyes suspicious. “Why would a Dalish care for anyone but their own?”

Keela stands before addressing them again. “Did it make much of a difference where you came from, huddled within that cage? I do not care if you walk the lonely path or not, it does not make you any less my kin. Our separation has brought us nothing but their chains. Come, let us help you prepare.”

It takes a good hour to help the victims be on their way. Some remain behind to rest while most filter through the trees back towards their homes, some towards the nearest Inquisition keep.

“What should we say happened here?” they ask before parting ways.

Keela glances at their faces and sees the burning Exalted Plains, remembers when Solas took her dream walking among the graceful palaces of Halamshiral before they were replaced by others with no soul. She can feel the tears she cried when first stepping into the Emerald Graves, so alive and so broken at the same time. Her path has lacked purpose as of late, but in their eyes she finds it renewed. “The truth. Tell them the truth. And tell them….tell them Ar ena’tu Elvhen.”

“Inquisitor, we must talk,” Cassandra says when they’ve put a few miles of distance between the caravan and their party. “How…what you did back there, how did you know it could be done?”

“I didn’t.”

“Your power has been growing stronger since we closed the last rift. I can practically hear it buzzing around you like a swarm of bees,” Dorian says. “You’re not even a little bit drained, are you?”

“No.” If anything she feels stronger. “I’m fine. I feel…fine.”

“Fine she says. Nothing about this is fine! You called demons out of the Fade like they were obedient hounds.”

“And you wake the dead to do your biding,” Keela replies.

“I…how are you not bothered by this?”

She shrugs a shoulder. The idea of it hovers just beyond the edge of her thoughts and if she concentrates on it too much she fears the insanity that will emerge. “I am, but there are only a few rift mages in Thedas. My trainer is…special, and Solas certainly had a habit of befriending beings from the Beyond. Perhaps this is merely a part of it no one has yet experienced? Was there a moment you felt I was out of control?”

“No, but this is hardly normal. By all accounts it should be impossible.”

“What was it that Varric said? She is known for the impossible,” Cassandra says and lets out a sigh. “I must admit I am somewhat concerned about this development, but I trust you, Inquisitor. I also trust that you will let us know the moment it becomes an issue. We _will_ have another discussion about this.”

“Yes, of course.”

They ride on, but now their silence is burdened with what has transpired. Cole's horse presses close enough to feel the heat off her brown coat.

"Go ahead, but be quiet about it."

"Chains, gripping tight to past and future, crippling, choking. A map, tokens of war and peace spread before you. You hold one tight, powerful and powerless to stop their blood from spreading. It must end. _Ar ena’tu Elvhen_. I will make the people rise. You worry what you will become to make it true."

Keela thinks about the slavers within her grip, their leader pulling apart at her command. The mark hums quietly within her palm, no longer just a companion but a piece of her like all the others. There is no discernable difference between its magic and her own now.

Demons follow her, sliding against the Veil as they move through the growing forest. She can sense them easily now and they do not call out to her in malice, no longer taunt with promises. She feels instead curiosity, an eagerness that they do not understand themselves. She should feel disgusted by the carnage she committed, afraid of this growing power surging within and what she is becoming. But she doesn’t and that worries her more than anything.

Cole leans closer, voice barely above a whisper. “You’re not a monster. Not yet.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rift Mage Spell: Master of the Void - Summon a level 17 demon for 15s. Activation 50 mana, Cooldown 42s. 
> 
> ;)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keela holds the eluvian piece between her fingers. The one before them ripples, singing to her magic with promises and answers just beyond. Somewhere passed its surface, she knows he awaits. Her fingers shake at the thought.

The Temple of Mythal is smaller than she remembers, or perhaps it is Keela that has changed. Inquisition scouts and soldiers make camp just outside the main doors having heard from Leliana's ravens of their approach. Keela collapses into a thankful heap before the blossoming fire and eagerly partakes in the fresh fruit and meat offered. One thing she doesn't miss about travel is the bland and hard tack. 

"I suppose it would be too much to hope there is a bottle of Agregio floating about?" Dorian asks as he falls next to her.

"Uh, well I-"

"Do not answer that," Cassandra interrupts the concerned soldier and snatches the plate of food in his hand.

"Has there been any word about Abelas and the other sentinels?" Keela asks.

"No, Your Worship. I will inform you at once if there's any news. We haven’t found anyone inside either, but the doors across the bridge are sealed and we can’t seem to open them. Perhaps we could make a battering ram-”

“I will handle that. No need to destroy the temple more than it already is.”

"Do you think he'll come?" Cassandra asks as the man moves on and Keela shakes her head. It was a foolish idea, for Abelas doesn’t seem the type to help a cause he has no part of, but it is worth the effort.

"Very doom and gloom, that one," Dorian comments.

“Why do you wish for his company?”

Keela looks off towards the temple trying to gather her thoughts. It is Cole that picks them up for her. “He is hers too, servant, sacrifice, stuck in a time they don’t belong in anymore. He looks ancient and she feels it. He might be a comfort, even if it’s just another stitch in a wound that won’t close.”

“Yes,” she whispers and stands, turning away from them. Hunger has become the last thing on her mind. “We will wait for him a few days, if we can. Finish your meal and meet me at the entrance. I know we’re tired, but I would see this done.”

The temple is silent as they continue their journey and Keela wonders what it was like in the days of glory. Hundreds of followers must have flocked to this sacred place, filling the air with prayers and song. Now only a few bright birds call out and soar through the empty arches. The Inquisition soldiers cleared much of the clutter away, but nothing can rid the ground of the black scorches where Corypheus brought ruin. The two statues before the bridge are but rubble and dark blood still sticks to stone. Such a beautiful place does not deserve such blasphemy.

They cross the bridge without incident this time and stand before the golden doors. Their magic is great and thrums through the air. Not even Corypheus and his pet could leave a scratch upon them.

“Should we knock?” Dorian asks.

Keela lifts her unmarked hand. White lines appear beneath her fingers and beat in time with her heart. They start to spread through the grooves of the artwork and as they reach the edges the doors flash once, bright and blinding. A great groaning fills the air as they swing wide in invitation.

The Inquisitor gives her friends a quick quirk of her lips. “I suppose being Mythal’s creature has some positive uses.”

They walk into the airy atrium to find Abelas waiting at its center. He wears the same armor of shifting bronze and emerald, but his hood is thrown back to reveal more of his features – head bare and ears long and graceful. Even with the lines etched upon his brow, Keela still sees a resemblance to Solas in the way he carries himself. Both elves stand strong and elegant like subjects of a noble painting.

“Andaran atish’an, Abelas,” greets Keela.

“Whatever peace existed here is long gone, She Who Has Tasted Sorrow,” Abelas says. His eyes narrow as his attention washes across her barren face. “So you have learned the truth.”

“I have.”

“I admit, I am surprised you have been able to withstand the Vir’abelasan’s power.”

“I am not weak.”

He crosses his arms and looks at her, through her, and Keela swears she can feel him brushing against the edges of her spirit. Something intangible ties them together and she reaches out, pulling on the thread. The feeling recedes and Abelas doesn’t exactly smile, but it is close. “Perhaps. What reason do you have for returning to this place?”

“Our scouts did not tell you?” Cassandra asks.

“You summoned me, Vassal. It appears I am still bound to the well even though my purpose is no more.”

“Mythal lives, Abelas. I have talked with her.” Keela tells the story of meeting Flemeth beyond the eluvian and the god laced within her veins. His eyes widen a fraction, fingers gripping tight in a fist beneath his chin. When she is finished, he gives a small shake of his head.

“If you have come to return the power, it cannot be done. You are bound to her forever, unless she sees fit to release you.”

“That is not why I am here. Have you been to the well since?” When he answers with another shake, Keela starts towards the path they took months ago. “Come then. I have something to show you.”

As they crest the final summit of Mythal’s sanctum, she cannot help remembering their initial journey to this place. Everything is fractured, quick against the dwindling sands of time pressing their heels harder into the stone. Solas glares at her, lips moving against her decision, but eyes divided in intent. In that moment he seemed thirsty for its power as she poured servitude down her own throat.

The well remains empty, its power locked away within her, and the once shattered eluvian shines whole and welcoming atop the altar of Mythal. Some small part of her wanted the dream to be proven wrong, but it cannot be denied now. Solas was here.

“It was broken beyond measure,” Abelas says beside her. “The power to mend it would be great indeed.”

Keela holds the eluvian piece between her fingers. The one before them ripples, singing to her magic with promises and answers just beyond. Somewhere passed its surface, she knows he awaits. Her fingers shake at the thought.

“It must be for another mirror,” Dorian says as he watches her. “I have a feeling you’re going to make me regret not leaving for Tevinter sooner.”

“I am going through. You are welcome to stay here-”

Cassandra makes a noise and steps closer.

“What is another jump through time and space between friends?” Dorian grabs his staff and twirls it with a flourish before stomping it upon the ground.

“He made _me_ forget,” Cole says and there is an anger to his voice Keela has never heard before, but understands deep within her heart. She turns to Abelas and the primal mage takes a few moments before answering.

“I will accompany you,” he says at last.

Keela steps close to the eluvian until her feet almost touch the rippling glass. She has spent many nights dreaming of meeting him again and now that it is here, she feels so unprepared. Does she truly wish to know the truth behind the frame? There is more than a mere reunion to be found beyond. She feels it deep within her bones, her soul. Whatever lays in wait will change everything.

She takes a deep breath and steps through. Her last trip using this portal spit her out on the carpets of Skyhold, but now it deposits her somewhere fantastical, but familiar. Strange and twisting trees grow between hundreds of eluvians as a mist blankets the world beyond. She feels different, stronger. The Vir’abelasan is a jubilant chorus inside her head while the mark vibrates so hard she has to concentrate on keeping its power in check.

Keela turns to look at the doorway. It is large and guarded on the sides by two dragons roaring into the sky with wings spread wide. The frame sparkles with gold and rubies, untarnished by the passage of time. It is a thing fit for a goddess. The surface shimmers like a stone thrown into a pond and Cassandra and Dorian appear side by side. Discomfort quickly coats their features and the mage bends over, gripping his staff tightly.

“What’s wrong?” Keela asks as she comes to support him.

“It feels like I have the makings of a dreadful hangover,” Dorian says.

“I may be sick,” Cassandra groans.

Abelas walks through next, standing tall and unaffected and appraises the scene with little surprise. When Cole steps through, Keela has to squint against the sudden brightness. He is surrounded in an aura of white and glances down at his hands, his mouth opened in a small circle.

“I feel… _strong_ ,” he says, amazed. “Stronger than before I became me.”

“What is this? Where are we?”

“Morrigan called it the Crossroads, a place where all the eluvians meet.”

“It is more than that,” Abelas says. “In our time there was no separation between the spirit world and ours. Now this is the only place where the two planes intersect.”

“That can’t be right. We wouldn't be able to live in this,” Dorian says.

“You did not. The creation of the Veil allowed your kind to enter our lands in force.”

“It made them stronger and us weaker,” Keela adds. “And mortal?”

“Yes, although we were defeated long before their armies reached our shores.”

"Will it kill them?”

“No. It makes the shemlen sick, but nothing more.” Keela thinks about how Morrigan walked through this place with easy steps. Perhaps the witch is even more than she appears.

“Let’s hurry then, unless you want to go back?” The two humans give her pained looks that have nothing to do with their sudden ailment. “All right, all right. Abelas, will you help Dorian?”

The sentinel sends her a hard stare of his own, but she suffers through it until he reluctantly agrees. Cole and Keela flank Cassandra as they walk through the cold and broken forest of glass.

“What is it exactly we are looking for?” Cassandra asks.

“An eluvian with a missing piece.”

Dorian gives a bark of laughter despite his fatigue. “This is a dream, it has to be. No, there would be a hot soaking tub and oils if it were. This is a nightmare.”

How can Keela explain what pulls at her feet? She feels like she knows every stone, every gilded frame and stoic tree. The voices of the well are so loud it is hard to hear anything else. They speak one over the other, making it impossible to discern their meaning, but Keela can understand their hunger clear enough.

She takes them around a corner and finds a large eluvian set apart from the others. A pair of howling wolves with emerald eyes sing to the sky and twisting vines and smooth stones create the frame. It is wild and wonderful and Keela feels drawn to it as if it is the sun after long days stuck in darkness.

“There.” Cole points to a vacant spot on the glass. Thin cracks surround the hole, but otherwise the mirror appears to be solid. She unveils the piece from her pocket and holds out her hand to superimpose it upon the missing section. A perfect fit.

“Be ready,” she says as she reaches forward and snaps it into place. The mirror hums to life as the returned part glows. A shockwave bursts from it, sending light and heat across the whole eluvian until it is as alive as the one they came from. She watches it for a moment, waiting, but nothing comes through. “Come on.”

“Are you sure about this?” Cassandra asks.

“No,” Keela says and disappears into the glass.

Cassandra and Dorian let out relieved sighs as they tumble in after her, color returning to their cheeks and eyes. They appear in a wide room smelling of history and Keela no longer feels magic tickling against her skin like before. As Cole steps through, he is his normal self once more and lets out a disappointed sigh that makes her smile. Wherever they are, they have left the Crossroads behind for now.

Sunlight filters through a hole in the stone ceiling and creeps through shattered windows at their sides. Keela steps with Dorian towards one of the openings. They appear to be nestled deep within a hill and she can see a dusty swath of land beyond. “Is that..? I think those are the Silent Plains. Look, you can see the Imperial Highway,” Dorian says.

The Seeker looks at him with a frown. “We’re in Tevinter?”

“Not exactly the homecoming I pictured. That I know if, we destroyed or repurposed every temple to the Elven gods we found. There’s a lucrative bathhouse in Mithranous that used to be a temple to June. Absolutely lavish, even for my tastes. To survive untouched we must be in one that is quite well hidden.”

“It is a temple of the Dread Wolf. He made them difficult to find,” Abelas reveals with the air of a detached guide.

As Keela takes a closer look, it appears the temple has encountered destruction, however. Every work of furniture is broken, stones covered in ash from fires long since burned out. There is writing on the walls and floors made in angry slashes of red paint full of Elvhen curses, things of betrayal and threats against the god of treason. The statue between two sets of stairs above them is defaced with the worst of words, the once proud snout and ears of Fen’Harel sawed off with malice. An untouched golden door gleams above, smaller but so much like the one guarding Mythal’s inner refuge.

Quick jumps up the steps bring her to the landing and she gazes at what lays before the doors. Ragged clumps of clothes, trinkets and bone meal pile against their surface. A large book rests towards the edges, the pages torn to dust and the leather barely held together.

Abelas kicks at a piece of cloth, turning it over to reveal a faded green seal. “I do believe these were priests of Fen’Harel.”

“Were they trying to escape something?”

“Or someone,” Keela answers Cassandra. “Most likely whoever ransacked the temple.”

Cole’s voice floats to them. “They came with fire and eyes burning. Prayers become screams, fear fragrant as incense. _Save us_. But he didn’t.”

“There is a most impressive spell on these,” Dorian remarks as he runs his hand against the gilded designs. Together, Dorian, Keela and even Abelas try to work around the magic with their own, but no matter how hard they push the way forward remains sealed. Keela can turn more than a dozen slavers to nothing, but this seems beyond her grasp. She bangs her fist against the surface, growling when it doesn’t even shutter.

She closes her eyes and calls to the Vir’abelasan. The voices have quieted since they entered the temple and remain so now. They whisper in the corner of her mind, huddled away with words cowed in reverence. She doesn’t understand until she hears Solas calling out through her mind. For a moment his force is greater than all the ancients combined. A flutter of fear floats through her stomach to have him so present within her thoughts for it is an intimate magic. He speaks the answer she searches for and she swears she can feel his lips against the skin of her ear.

Keela holds out her marked hand and lets the anchor’s power flare to life. It curls about and brushes against the grain like caressing a cherished lover. Whispered sighs fill the air, too quiet for her to make out their words, but they tickle against her ears and skin. “Fen’Harel enansal,” she says and with an echoing click the doors swing open without even a groan.

“How did you…”

But she ignores her companions and crosses the threshold, eyes already captivated with the first glimpses of brilliant color beyond. The room is a cylinder with a raised dais at its center. As she nears it she can see a staff with a glistening ivory sphere crowning the long twisting shaft, but it’s the far wall that demands her attention.

The fresco appears as new as the day it was painted and the design so familiar Keela is thrown back into Skyhold’s rotunda. She remembers the way Solas would mix colors together to get that perfect blue, the same swirling around in front of her now, and the way his lines and curves demanded reverence and awe just as the depiction of a gold and glorious temple dominating the space now does.

Something strikes like lightning inside her, thunder rumbling through veins and bursting against her skull. Something that threatens to topple her with its discovery. The truth, his truth, sits waiting for her, but Keela cannot find the courage to chase it in the sight of this familiarity in a place so foreign.

Feet turn beneath her ready to run from the room as her heart races between bones until the impossible happens.

The painting begins to move.

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She remembers her dreams with fanciful moments and images she thought just simple workings of the mind. She can hear how he hesitates in explaining his knowledge before claiming to have witnessed it through journeys in the Fade. She sees his flashing eyes as he berates her from drinking from the well.
> 
> There are dozens of clues connecting like spider webs within her, the pattern unknown until the last strand is finally put in place. She has been such a fool.

The mural comes to life before their eyes. The beautiful temple of gold and crystal falls away like rivulets of rain to pool together into nine figures. They appear as animals with the vallaslin of the Elvhen pantheon blazing in white on their faces. Elgar’nan and Mythal are both dragons, one a bright yellow that rivals the sun, the other a cool blue as crisp as the moon. Falon’Din spreads ruffled wings, his gaze the wise eyes of an owl. At the very end sits Fen’Harel, a wolf black as night with eyes gleaming red in the darkness, unmarked and untamed.

They fade away until one is left, a hawk with fierce talons that morphs into a goddess with a great bow. She stalks into a swirling void made of dark greens and blues, desperately searching, while a wolf harries her steps. The white clad warrior emerges with clothes stained of black and within her breast a heart sickens. The fresco swirls around her into a sanctuary guarded by dragons sending blazing fire into the sky. She sneaks by them while a group of her soldiers ransack the temple and torment the priests of Mythal.

Abelas’ voice carries across the scene. “It is the tale of the Great Betrayal. It was not the Dread Wolf who brought about their end. It was her.” He points towards the creeping figure against the wall.

"Andruil." Keela steps closer and watches as a gleaming spear made of stars and light appears between the madwoman’s fingers.

“Mythal stole her knowledge and barred the way into the Abyss, but she did not take from Andruil her madness. The other gods were content to let the Forgotten Ones be and cared little for their weak forays against the world. The huntress knew there would be one way to bring her wanted war and it was done with a gleeful heart.”

Andruil has found her prey and stalks towards the unknowing victim.  They observe as the spear is released and pierces the All-Mother's back. Dragon wings unfurl from Mythal in a frantic attempt to escape, but she crumbles to the ground, red spilling down the wall as the scene turns dark and terrible.

“The blame was placed upon the Forgotten Ones, but there were those that did not believe Andruil’s words, Fen'Harel among them. It mattered not for Elgar’nan’s wrath would heed no reason.”

A great dragon swoops across the walls, igniting cities and fields with its giant maw open to swallow the world. Elvhen cannot escape from the destruction as gods battle with beings of claw and shade above their heads. At the edge of the painting, the clever wolf appears. He jumps into the chaos, saving souls and placing them within his shelter. Keela watches as Fen’Harel circles them, watches as each time he passes by marks of blood writing disappear from faces until all are unblemished. As the war rages on, those saved grow larger and stronger, swords beating against shields, staffs burning brighter with power.

“While the gods fought amongst themselves, Fen’Harel’s power grew with every Elvhen turned to his service until there was enough to remake the world.” The wall wipes clean of the carnage and a solitary item spins upon it that Keela can recognize in an instant. It is the foci that branded her skin and caused the hole in the sky. The gods of her people appear above it, the Forgotten Ones far below.

The orb flashes with fierce light and a thick, green line shoots across the middle of every wall. Other lines snake out like lightning and wrap around the arms and legs of each god and fallen creature, trapping them in crackling chains. The Creators disappear into a dark city set amongst green clouds, the Forgotten Ones buried deep within swirling lava and rock.

“He created the Veil,” Keela says and watches the midnight wolf bound across the wall, alone. He approaches the orb and clasps it within his jaws. A lonesome howl echoes within the room and crawls underneath her skin. She understands his cry deep within her soul – he is now a creature without kin, made possible by an impossible choice. The canine shifts into smoke, its body reorganizing into a hazy outline of a person. Long fingers appear and reach out to hold aloft the spinning sphere.

“And then what happened?” Cassandra asks as the vapors curls into legs with bare feet, arms lined with lean muscle. The straight hips and broad shoulders of a man emerge, but the sharp lines of the artist make him seem still so otherworldly.

Keela steps even closer as the smoke reveals long, brown hair tied back in twisted ropes at the top of his head, a style so similar to the one she now wears.

“And now we know Mythal didn’t truly perish. Perhaps-”

Dorian’s words die on his tongue as the last details of the fresco bursts to life. A necklace drapes low against the naked chest of the elf and Keela reaches out to touch the jawbone dangling there like she has so many times before.

“Is it me, or does that look eerily similar to someone we know?”

“Sweet Andraste,” Cassandra mutters.

Keela should feel something as she stares at the image. The differences cannot hide their likenesses, especially with her dream visions of him storming up from memory. Fear or wonderment should course through her to understand this truth. It is a secret worth keeping, but she feels nothing but the rough wall beneath her fingers.

“Could it be, truly?” Cassandra says. "Solas is..."

“He never acted the part of an all-powerful deity, except of course for that smug intelligence I suppose. Certainly never dressed like one.”

And then Keela does feel something. She feels his presence shift into the room, pressing against her skin like the hundreds of caresses he gave and took with his passing. She has imagined this moment in so many ways, dreamed of it with elevated desire and equal disgust, but nothing could have prepared her for the truth. Keela turns to face it head on regardless.

“A god need not prove himself. Isn’t that right?”

Solas stands within the threshold of the room, a hand poised against the doorframe. The others follow her gaze and freeze at the sight of him. Cautious, he moves across the floor and comes to stand atop the altar at its center with his gaze never leaving hers. Abelas straightens before falling to one knee to a god of Arlathan. Resentment twitches within her at the sight, but still she cannot seem to grasp onto any emotion, any thought, like they are birds swarming far above her head.

The space fills with silence like it is a tangible thing, smothering and choking them with its heavy weight. Keela flexes her fists as Solas simply watches with that expression revealing nothing of his thoughts. It is then that hundreds of questions rush through her mind. She wants to know what happened afterwards, where he went when the people suffered without guidance in a strange, new world. She wants to know why he left her in similar rubble, broken into pieces like the orb. _His_ orb. She wants to understand the truth of his lies even if it will bring little comfort.

But she did not come here as a Dalish scholar, nor a lover spurned. She came as a guardian of Thedas on the scent of danger against her charge. Keela pulls the tight mask of the Inquisitor over her and lets it quell her mind. She has never needed it more than in this moment.

“Leave the room,” she finally says, eyes flicking towards the others before returning to his. “ _Go_.”

With varying degrees of hesitation, her three companions and the sentinel obey. When they are alone, Keela considers the figure before her and the one at her back. She remembers her dreams with fanciful moments and images she thought just simple workings of the mind. She can hear how he hesitates in explaining his knowledge before claiming to have witnessed it through journeys in the Fade. She sees his flashing eyes as he berates her from drinking from the well.

There are dozens of clues connecting like spider webs within her, the pattern unknown until the last strand is finally put in place. She has been such a fool.

Keela watches him with her own formidable stare, arms crossing to hide the only part of her that he has the ability to hurt. The still stretches between them for a few moments more until Solas finally moves to stand on her level. She shifts away as he steps to her side and gazes up at the artwork. His artwork.

“I regret I was unable to finish the mural at Skyhold,” he says. “Yours is a story that deserves a proper tribute.”

"After everything, that's the first thing you're going to say to me?"

He turns to face her completely then, his expression a slow melt into something she is not ready to see. Solas takes a step forward and she retreats, a partner in a dance she does not want to perform.

“You knew. You knew he had the orb the whole time and you knew who he was. How many deaths could have been avoided with that knowledge? Haven could still be standing if it weren’t for your lies of omission.”

A sudden flare of anger ignites inside and burns away her mask of indifference. “And you knew the true nature of the gods and still let me drink from the well. How could you keep that from me? The chains I wear are blessed by your closed lips!”

This time she is the one to step forward with eyes as dangerous as the fire starting to smoke within her grasp. Solas does not move away and meets her gaze with patient acceptance that only irritates her further.

“I understand why you kept quiet at first. A pagan god among Chantry officials who have done all they can to erase us in the past could not reveal themselves. And I was just some Dalish child to you, but things changed. _Everything_ changed, you said. You must have known I would never turn away from you because of this."

"Yes, I knew it. But in telling you I would put you in danger from forces beyond any mortal's abilities, even yours. I could not do it, no matter how I wished for you to know me as I truly am. You are a treasure that must be protected."

"I have never needed protection!" As if to emphasize her statement, the mark pops and flares between her fingers. She wants to shake him, to burn this temple to the ground with all the lies and pain turning to ash between them. She thought she could do this with a steady mind and heart, but she's trembling with all the things she's locked away. "I care not for what you are, but it is the fact you kept it from me that has always cut my heart. How could you bear my trust, my _love_ , under the weight of your lies?"

“There were many times I struggled to keep my sins from spilling in the face of your devotion. I had every intention of confessing to you in the glade, of unshackling myself from my purpose and laying before the mercy of your judgement. Yet when I looked upon your unmarked face, I saw all those I had left in ruin, all those left to the harsh machinations of man with no means to combat their cruelties. All those I would betray as I lived without consequence. I could not abandon them a second time.”

"But you would abandon me and call it a kindness."

He does not try to hide his misery at that. Solas reaches out and she cannot imagine what will happen if she feels his skin again. The idea of it scares her more than any high dragon or evil magister combined. "Keela-"

"Don't touch me, harellan. _"_ She knows it is cruel to say, but she can't think beyond the consuming heat of her hurt.

Solas turns away from her with the pretense of gazing at the mural. Hands lace behind his back in the casual stance she knows so well, but she can see how tight he grips his fingers together. A wave of remorse washes over her and in its wake she feels the rage extinguish. The fever in her fists sizzles away, the mark calms and cools. She realizes that if it was his orb, it is also his strange power cursing through her veins. She wonders how much of it still belongs to him, and if it is what drew them together all those long months ago.

The idea leaves her tired and worn. When she speaks again, her voice is quiet, defeated. "Why am I here? Why tell me all this now?"

Without a word, Solas returns to platform at the center and Keela can do nothing but be swept along. His fingertips reach out to brush down the long staff and remain atop the white orb at its top. His touch brings swirling tendrils of green light to the surface and she feels magic vibrate through the air.

“It was my unique talent to be able to walk across the worlds, to belong to them and the places in between. That would not be possible in the world after Arlathan, if I would indeed survive my own rebellion. Before I created the Veil, I left certain artifacts behind that would allow one to enter physically into the Fade in case my access to the orb was limited. A mask was one, another a gauntlet. Both I am afraid have been lost to time, and now this is all that remains. With its power I will be able to walk into the Beyond as we did at Adamant.”

She doesn’t bothering questioning why he didn’t think to ask for her aid in reaching the Fade. Whatever his plan, she has never been a part of it. “For what purpose?”

Solas takes his time in answering and keeps his gaze intent upon the staff.  “I will tell you, but there is something I would give you first. A promise I swore to fulfill. May I?”

When he takes a step nearer, Keela does not retreat this time. A hand comes up between them and begins to pulse with ice colored light, and there is a pull tugging at the center of her chest. Her skin prickles, as if ghosts brush against her exposed flesh, and for a panicked moment the sensation reminds her of when Flemeth took over her limbs.

“For all my faults, whether factual or fantasy, I have never made an oath I did not intend to keep. I have found a way to break Mythal's control if you wish it. You must know it will take the Vir’abelasan from you in the process and in doing so it will be lost to the Elvhen forever, but it is a price even I would see paid in return for your freedom.”

“How…how did you…”

“It does not matter. What matters is that it can be done. Do you want-”

“ _Yes_! Please, please take it away.”

Solas moves forward again, his hands coming to hover close to the sides of her face. Power thrums in her ears and tickles across her skin. The voices of the well will not go quietly, however. As if they understand what is happening, they begin to cry out in her mind with all the force of hailstones barreling against metal. Keela's hands fly out to grasp the fabric at his hips to steady herself against their clawing attempts to dig further into her mind.

She closes her eyes, holding on as her skull flashes with pain and pressure. Thousands of voices drown out thought and when she thinks she can take no more, when she doubts she could hear her own scream amongst the raging chorus, all sound seems to snap out as if the world has gone dark.

When she opens her eyes she finds they have both fallen to the floor and stares down at their knees brushing one another. Her forehead presses against the hollow of Solas' collarbone, her fingers still bunched in the fabric of his tunic. She takes in a breath and feels like she can hear the particles of her lungs stretching, can hear the blood pumping through her veins. Everything is quieter and more vibrant at the same time, but she is startled by the hollowness left behind.

They are gone, and even though she feels lesser for it, she feels like herself again. The relief and sudden emptiness swell together and she does not try to stop the tears from falling. A noise somewhere between a sob and laugh leaves her lips and Solas tightens his hold on her shoulders.

"Keela."

"They're gone," she says when she has the strength to lift her head. His smile is gentle like the tips of his fingers wiping away her tears. His gaze sweep over her face with a look he only gives before pulling away with some excuse, and out of habit she brings her hands to his collar to keep him close. The motion makes his face turn desperate, hungry, as if he might bridge the gap between them and Keela holds her breath at the possibility.

“Keela,” he says again and instead drops his forehead against hers. “You are my heart and I cannot ask you to endure what must be done. It was my pride that destroyed our future and only I should suffer in the face of its return. You deserve a world unbroken, one that is yours to mold with that brilliant fire within you. It is the last gift I can give.”

"Solas?"

“Forgive me, for what I have done and must do.” He leaves a soft kiss against her brow, his lips shaking against her skin. The shattered tremor in his voice aches within her own breast. "But I can be him no longer."

Their connection breaks away all at once and she has to stop herself from stumbling forward. His hand wraps around the ancient staff and brings it down on the ground between them. Solas says something, words too quick and deep to catch, and the sphere atop bursts to life.

Keela's hair flies in front of her face as a portal opens behind him and pulls the air away to somewhere sick and twisted. The world beyond is dark and grey, and all too familiar. A black city looms on the horizon.

"What are you-"

The look on his face stops her, so determined yet desolate, like a warrior standing on the front lines before the mighty horde. Her heart fills with dread for now she finally understands his plans as if the Vir’abelasan still sings to her mind.

"Goodbye," he says and steps inside.

"No!" Keela screams and scrambles to stand, but it is too late. The portal to the Fade collapses and she is alone once more.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They will battle, claw and teeth and swarming magic blazing in the darkness of the Fade, and she will win. He will never give up this quest if it comes to that, not until the last breath moves through his lungs. It is the only way he believes that his plan can be foiled, that she will kill him and bear away this burden. It is what he expects from her, his fierce warrior made of molten metal.

"Inquisitor!"

Keela hears Cassandra's call from a great distance as the Seeker comes to stand at her side. Strong arms pull her from the floor while Dorian asks questions, but her attention lingers in the air where Solas last stood. She can see him like the ghost image after a lightning strike and the mournful acceptance on his face still burns her eyes.

Cassandra gives her a shake, less gentle than perhaps she intended, and finally Keela turns to the others. It is Abelas’ gaze she latches onto first.

“The Vir’abelasan,” he says. There is a part of her that mourns its absence and all the knowledge lost to her people now. It deserves a better fate than to be forgotten, but she could not carry the weight any longer. The sentinel does not appear to be angry with her decision, nor surprised.

“She’s just one again,” says Cole. “But he’s not.”

Keela snaps her attention to the spirit. “What?”

“Did he make mention of his plans?” Cassandra asks as she steps forward and blocks Keela’s sight.

“He’s gone to the Fade. He’s…” Keela shakes her head, not believing the idea lodged there. “He’s going to destroy the Veil.”

“I beg your pardon?” Dorian says, shock making his voice rise. “It seems to me you said he’s going to sunder the only thing that apparently allows humans to live in Thedas with any sense of comfort, but that can’t be right.”

“It will also allow spirits to walk freely into this world and mages into the Fade,” Abelas adds. “Even those without inherent magic might be able to do so, I cannot be sure. All of Elvhenan had access to the source from birth.”

Keela remembers a discussion, long ago in the snows of Haven, when Solas spoke of such a possibility. How many of his stories and theories were memories instead?

“Surely he wouldn’t do such a thing,” Cassandra says, but Keela knows her well enough to hear the doubt in her words. “Demons would destroy whatever he wished to create. There would be chaos, thousands of deaths.”

Abelas catches her eyes again. “Unless he means to release _them_ as well.”

“No,” Keela says even when she knows the truth of it. She can see it in Solas’ gaze as he tells her goodbye. “They’ll kill him.”

“Most certainly,” Abelas agrees. “Although perhaps not right away with what he carries.”

“What do you mean?”

“Fen’Harel holds the spirit of Mythal within him. It is why he could remove the Vir’abelasan from you. She is…much changed, but I could hear her voice as if it were thousands of years ago.”

_Did he kill Flemeth for it? Did they make some sort of deal?_ _Why?_ Her mind races with the possibilities.

“For you,” Cole whispers. “Always for you.”

Keela inhales a breath that fills every drop of blood pulsing through her veins with cold clarity. He would do all this for her, to give her people the world they were created to possess from the beginning. But it is not just their world anymore. Cassandra, Dorian, she suspects Bull and the other Qunari too, perhaps the Dwarves, _Cullen,_ they will have to leave Thedas forever. She knows most will never make it to the boundaries of Elvhenan renewed.

Keela pulls away from Cassandra’s grasp. “I have to stop him.”

She rushes from the room and back into the main hall with her companions close on her heels. The mirror still shimmers in welcoming and shines even brighter as the light grows dim outside. She is running out of time.

“But how?” Cassandra asks.

“I’m the only one that can follow him. I’ll find him and…” She doesn’t know what she will do, she only knows she must do something. “Go back through the eluvians-”

“Inquisi-”

“ _Go back_. Get out of the Arbor Wilds, send word to Skyhold, to anywhere. It won’t be nearly enough, but it might save some lives in case I fail.”

“You can’t expect us to let you do this alone,” Dorian says. “You have taken others in the Fade before. Let us come with you.”

“No! If I cannot…if this ends poorly, you will be stuck there forever. The risk is too great. Go and warn as many as you can. Abelas-”

“I will do what I can to help. It is not the will of Mythal and I fear the Dread Wolf does not understand what he will unleash on this world. He should know there are things that cannot be muzzled.”

“Go, now. We can’t afford to wait,” Keela says again as she points towards the eluvian. Abelas gives her a nod before stepping through, but her friends pause. Cassandra looks the most pained, as if she might physically carry Keela back with them. Her friend is always quiet in her affections, but it takes only a close look to see how much the Seeker truly cares.

“I expect to see you soon, Inquisitor,” the warrior says and moves through the glass.

Dorian embraces Keela quickly and leaves a sigh against her collar. “Don’t think for a moment I’m happy about this. Try not to do anything insufferable without me, hm?”

“Vitae benefaria,” she says, and Dorian gives her a sad smile before slipping through the eluvian. “Any useful thoughts for me, Cole?”

“He said he was sorry for making me forget. And then...they can never know about her. Stolen breaths, hot, heat, burning the skin without flames. Her love is a brand I would gladly wear with true pride. She is my light and they will destroy her. Keela. It is your name, but it's heavy with other things, things he wants to want but doesn't think he deserves. He'll give you what he couldn't be."

"Fool," she says.

"He wants you to stop him, but he doesn't know how to ask."

She lets out a sigh. "Thank you."

He reaches out and brushes the tips of his fingers against the mark on her palm. "They will be waiting for you too, the other me's."

"Spirits, you mean?"

"They want to tear you apart, see what shines so brightly. It makes them frustrated, wanting something through the bars just out of reach. They are tame for now, but they claw at their collars."

"I will be careful." Keela watches him disappear through the eluvian. The temple is silent, more a mausoleum to something long lost. She wonders how many times Solas, _Fen’Harel_ , walked through this place, if she's standing on the memories of his footprints.

She lifts her hand and the anchor sparks to life. Air shimmers and moans and splits like parchment to reveal a mist filled world she never wanted to visit again. Keela exhales a nervous breath before stepping through, and breaths in the stale air of the Fade.

A welcoming party awaits just as Cole predicted. Demons of pride, envy, fear and rage push against one another to have a look at her while gentler spirits waft through the cracks like clouds. Keela can feel the anchor pulsing with the rapid beat of her heart at the sight of so many frightening forms, but the assembly does not move to attack.

Keela takes a tentative step forward, and the demons nearby move back in response. She continues onward, hearing her feet crunch the dead earth, feeling their hot breaths flow against her skin. As the spirits part, she can see the Black City on the horizon, but not as far is usually seems. There is a figure that awaits at the end of the line and Keela stops in surprise.

It is her, or something like her. Same black hair, same yellow eyes and wearing the official robes of the Inquisitor. There is only one difference between them. The specter cocks her head to the side and the dim light of the Fade catches on the vallaslin beneath her eyes.

"Who are you?" Keela asks.

"Who are _you?"_ it asks in return. "Your light is so bright we can see it in the mortal world. Here, it's almost blinding. We have not seen your like for thousands of years. Do you even know what you are?"

"I don't have time for riddles. Do you know where he is?"

Her doppelganger turns and points towards the looming structure above. "Where they were born, were they now sleep."

"Can you take me there?"

"Why should I? The Wolf wants to cast off _our_ chains this time. We will be free to roam the worlds as it was long ago. What do you have to offer, you who has nothing and no one?"

The Fade shimmers like heat off rocks and screams fill Keela's ears. There is a city with high walls she has never seen suddenly rising from the ground and fire at her feet. A pained yell stings against her ears nearby and she turns to take in the carnage. Dalish elves run through the trees as arrows rain down from above. Some of her kin are armed, but they cannot stand against the heavy armor and steel of their foes. A woman runs towards her, long brown hair falling out of a bloody braid, and the familiarity of her face hits Keela like a giant's fist.

"No..." In the distance she can see a human taking aim and letting the arrow fly. The woman jerks forward as the barbed head bursts through her chest. "No!"

Keela rushes forward and catches the falling victim. Hands clutch at her clothing, blood spilling and soaking her skin, but she can only see the pain and betrayal in her Keeper's eyes. "Da'len…da’len, where were you?"

"Deshanna, ir abelas! I should have..."

"Avenge our blood," she says before turning to dust in Keela's grasp. She knows this is nothing but a fabrication of the Fade, but it doesn’t matter. It happened, not here, not now, but it happened and she wasn’t there for her clan. Their absence is like a sharp icicle piercing her heart and the only way to be rid of it is to burn it away with the anger rolling inside. The shems should pay, _will pay_ , for what they did.

"They were killed without a thought," the spirit in her skin says behind her. "You saved the humans and they repaid you with callous disregard. One of their queens set fire to a city to smoke out one life. A whole country makes slaves of you all without much reproach. They've erased so many Elvhen from the history books so what makes you think you'll be any different? What makes you think deaths like hers will ever stop at their hands? What makes you think they won’t turn on you next?"

Images flash across her vision like pages of a fast flying book. The sharp looks and tongues of nobles at the Winter Palace, even the soldier at Skyhold that spoke so boldly within her hearing of his hatred for elves. She can feel the Exalted March thumping through her as death descends in one final swoop to take their lives, their culture, in the name of loving faith. The vines and leaves of the Emerald Graves circle her wrists and ankles and pull her to pieces inside.

"Let the Wolf win. Let the wall fall away and free the old ones from their cage. Their vengeance will cleanse your world and heal your people. Then we can be together again, like it always was meant to be."

The darkness of the Beyond lifts as if the sun has moved away from the clouds and Keela looks upon a world bright and beautiful. Trees tall and proud hold houses made from pearlescent crystal while elvhen children run laughing through water as clear as the sky below. Spirits of every color, some small and some as large as bison, float along their corporeal brothers and sisters. Keela holds out her hand to one nearby and feels calming joy as it brushes against her fingers.

“This was our world, once,” the voice has changed, but she can recognize its cadence. The Solas from her dreams stands at her side now, long hair and lean chest bared to the sun. Fen’Harel is young, untamed, and there is a mischief like armor in his eyes. It is like seeing a drawing of Solas before all the colors she knows have been filled in. He moves closer and reaches out to run cool fingers against her palm. Keela shivers against the touch and the sight of him, this man who has made her cry out into the darkness, yet she didn’t even know existed.

“We understood the Dread Wolf’s plight. If the gods continued their slaughter, there would be nothing left. So we helped him form the Veil with the promise of a peaceful existence and a world of our own. But the humans came and blackened our lovely home. They have wronged us too with their infinite lust for power and insatiable greed. Let them go, lethallan. Let their darkness leave our shores.”

The picture the Fade paints is beautiful. She has never felt at home in the waking world, torn between each part of herself and finding no roost to rest in. This place sings to her soul, mends the rips and tears with its easy harmony. She has witnessed her people surviving with so little, or living with the shadow of the shemlen still lurking above, but this- this is her people _thriving_. This is the life they were meant to have, so why did it all go wrong?

“I…” Keela pulls away her hand from this mockery of Fen’Harel and glares at the spirit lurking beneath. The mark glows, snaps like an angry hound, and sweeps away the fake illusions around them. “I do not have time for this. Take me to the Black City, now.”

His lip curls, not in an angry snarl, but a devious smirk. The being has placed doubt in her mind like a quickling seed and they both know it. “As you command. Take my hand.”

When Keela grasps hold, the Beyond flies by her like she is atop a fast moving steed. The Black City grows larger and larger with each second and all at once she is deposited at its doorstep. The spirit pulls away and Keela feels as if she’s fallen from a great height and staggers.

“I will go no further. This place is vile, even to beings of the Fade. But we beg you, Inquisitor, to think of those you will leave to rot if you stop Fen’Harel from completing his task. Have we all not suffered enough?”

The spirit does not wait for an answer and disappears in smoke and ash. Keela cannot deny the truth in its words and the things it revealed. She knows those of Elvhenan committed horrible crimes against one another under the heavy demands of their gods, but the humans have done far worse things to her people. Elvhen deserve to be unyoked from their oppression and vengeance done to those who forced them so low.

She hesitates before climbing onto that first step. This is a place of legend to some, a place of religious fervor for most, and something apparently feared by denizens of the Beyond. The last to cross its threshold tainted it and became monsters, destroyed this land with corruption and darkness.

_You’re not a monster, not yet_.

Will she leave this place one too, then?

Keela slowly lifts her foot, pausing when it lands on the step with thoughts of traps and retribution flying through her mind, but nothing happens. She climbs further, slowly, until she rushes forward and takes the long steps two at a time. When she reaches the landing she sees one of the doors is left open enough for a person to slip through and knows he has already arrived. She follows in his footsteps, brushing against the decaying wood, and walks into a place few have ever seen.

The wide, open room reminds her of Skyhold when they first stepped foot into its embrace. It was broken and discarded, a proud place brought low by time and disuse. This place is much the same, but a heavy sickness sticks to the walls and swarms through the air. The Black City is made entirely of stone now turned dark as night like a great inferno torched everything. Sorrow and discontent seep through cracks and weep onto the floor in a thick, green liquid.

Heavy slabs of pews have been thrown like kindling against the walls while smashed chandeliers lay in miserable heaps on the floor. Keela is careful not to let the shattered glass cut into her skin as she passes up the hall. She does not see Solas, nor any signs of former life. As she reaches the end, her eyes are drawn up to the raised dais. There is a throne, just as Corypheus once explained, empty and decaying with no owner in sight. It is no bigger than her own at Skyhold and she wonders just who this Maker might have been, if it is indeed his seat at all.

Green light catches her eye to the right and she follows its glow. There is a large antechamber beside the platform and one look inside reveals her query. He is there standing with head bowed in front of an eluvian cast in gold. The brightness of its color in such a dismal place makes her eyes hurt. Its surface is cold, black, and she wonders if that is where her gods are trapped.

There is another device in the room between her and Solas, something as recognizable as he is. Emerald static races around the elvhen artifact, and it is so very similar to the ones she activated all across Thedas, only large enough to come to her shoulders as it sits on the floor. What was she truly doing by following his instructions in activating those strange devices?

Her eyes flit back to his figure. Solas’ fingers are wrapped tight on the staff of Fen’Harel and she can see them tremble as she approaches. He does not hear her bare feet against the thick, seeping stones so she steps with more purpose to catch his attention. He looks up and finds her figure in the mirror. She sees the harsh determination on his face in a brief flash before horror washes over his features.

“No!” It is a cry of disbelief and pain, as if she’s wounded him. He takes giant strides to her, grasping strong hands around her arm. “You must leave.”

“I will not.”

“Please, you cannot be here when-” He takes a breath to steady himself, but the alarm in his eyes does not vanish. “If-”

“Stop,” she whispers, stepping close enough to brush against the fabric of his tunic. Fingers trail up his chest and grip the edges of his collar. It is a motion done so many times that she is not surprised to feel his hands at the small of her back in response. Keela presses nearer, demanding all his attention with her touch and the fierce light of her eyes.

The demons words may have gotten under her skin, but they are forgotten as Keela holds him now. She knows what she must do.

“I promised I would do whatever I had to do to protect you, and that includes protecting you from yourself.” She pulls him forward until they are mixed together. “You do not need to do this.”

His fingers grip her clothing and skin like she has struck him yet she is the only thing to cling to. She sees his faltering gaze, watches him trying to build the walls up against her, but she won’t let him go. Not anymore.

“This world…it’s flawed and dangerous. It’s imperfect and completely mad, but we are not alone. Look what the Inquisition has done in such a short time. We are Shemlen, Qunari, Dwarf and Elvhen. We are Thedas, and together we are stronger. Perhaps it’s not how it was meant to be, but it is what we have now. If we go back we risk losing everything so painfully achieved.”

Her hands slide up to cradle his face. “How much do you think the Elvhen would have grown behind their walls of the past? We were alone and would have died alone, stinted like a sapling unable to seek the sun. Fen’Harel gave us a gift and we have been too careless in its handling. But it’s not too late. He can still show us a way to freedom, for all of us.”

“Keela…”

“I believe in us, in this world. I do not want something perfect, but something _real_. Maybe there is a way to restore some of what once was without destroying the present. If there is a future to be had, I want more than anything for us to find it together. ”

She slips out of his embrace and steps near the shimmering artifact. "But do what you must, I won't stop you. I can see the future and what would happen if I would and I _..."_

They will battle, claw and teeth and swarming magic blazing in the darkness of the Fade, and she will win. He will never give up this quest if it comes to that, not until the last breath moves through his lungs. It is the only way he believes that his plan can be foiled, that she will kill him and bear away this burden. It is what he expects from her, his fierce warrior made of molten metal.

But she won't do it. He took the Vir'abelasan away from her, the one thing that could bend her to his will and make his victory assured. He kept his promises and she will not betray him. He gave her freedom, her greatest desire. She will not be the one to give him his greatest fear.

"I can’t _,"_ she says. _I won’t._

He can only look at her, worry and wonder battling with ferocity across his features. He takes in a breath that he does not release, his eyes searching her face with the barest glimpse of hope peeking through the turmoil within. “You would allow me to destroy the Veil and set things back the way they were? I do not know if there is a way for the Humans and Qunari to remain without succumbing to weakness. I do not believe you could want this.”

She will find a way to help the world if it comes to it, but she will not allow Thedas to take one more thing from her. It is Cole’s words that spur her onward. Solas wants her to stop him and she knows it cannot be done by force. There is something stronger than steel and it lives inside her heart.  “It is your choice to make, but I hope you will finally trust me. There is no need for you to be alone any longer.”

Solas shakes his head, those beautifully crafted walls crumbling right before her eyes. “You cannot know what this means.”

But she does. Keela comes closer and offers a smile she has let few others see. It is warm, not like the blazing fire within, but a gentle flame coaxed with love and care. She feels like her mouth cracks from the disuse of it as of late, but she will give it to him from this day forward and forever if he wants it.

“It means…I have not forgotten the kiss. Have you?"

For a moment there is only the distant crackling of the Fade surrounding her until Solas leaps forward and clutches her tight. He lets out a long breath, hot and haunted against her neck, and in it she hears his surrender. She latches onto him with equal ferocity as her heart swells with relief and delight.

“Vhenan,” he whispers in her ear.

“Ma fen.”

She can feel the touch of a smile against her cheek at such an endearment and knows this battle is finally over. Laughter falls from her lips before she captures his mouth. There is so much more to say, to understand, but Keela cannot care about in this moment. There has been too much loss and death. She wants the world to disappear, to melt within his touch and fill each other up with the mixing of their souls.

He speaks his love between breaths and sighs, quiet Elvhen she is thankful to still understand, and each sentence she punctuates with a desperate kiss. Every caress sparks life back into her nerves until she feels like she could light all of Thedas with the bright glow of happiness within.

“You are right, as ever,” he says when they finally part long enough to form thoughts again. “Forgive me my foolishness in thinking there could only be one solution. I wanted…I was…”

“Grim and fatalistic, I know.”

The laugh he gives her is full of life and love and she never wants to forget the way it moves through them both. “If there is one strong enough to see this world flourish with possibilities, it is you. “

“Us. You are never leaving my side again.”

“No,” he agrees, settling his forehead against hers. They remain that way until their soaring hearts beat quiet and content once more.

“We should go back. The others will be worried, Cassandra furious if I delay any longer. We will tell them all is well and then...” Keela steals away his mouth again with searing heat, biting down and pulling gently against the bottom lip. The hunger inside demand to be satiated and a great longing for his skin against hers makes her moan. It has been far too long.

“And then you are going to take me back to that glade in Crestwood and make me forget what happened there before. The world can wait for a few hours.”

Devotion and desire swirl like a whirlpool in his eyes, and she can see that marvelous mischief that she craves so in the quirk of his grin. “Only a few hours?”

She laughs, bright and clear, and leaves a peck against his nose before moving back. “Such brazen confidence. Have you been holding back, then? Fearful I will not endure the full attention of the Dread Wolf himself?”

He gives an amused shake of his head as he retreats to pick up his discarded staff. Keela’s eyes drift up towards the silent eluvian behind him. She moves towards its blackened surface until she stands between Solas and the device, but far enough away to not warrant warning. “I have yet to release the full extent of my godhood in this world. It is a very obvious thing for one who would try to blend in unnoticed.”

“And the other gods? Are they truly there?”

“They slumber, unaware of the passage of time and unaffected by it. I could not be so cruel to allow thousands of years of awareness with no means to entertain it.”

“Do you think…I do not wish them to be locked away forever for a misunderstanding. Could we ever release them?”

“It is for more than one misunderstanding that I sent them away, vhenan. It is better this way, but-” He tilts his head, considering. “It would not hurt to investigate the idea further. If my kin can be reminded of our true intent beneath their blinding hatreds then perhaps they can be saved.”

Keela turns back to face him. “If the god of rebellion can be swayed, then surely they can as well.”

“Tha-” The playful look drops from his face to be replaced by sheer panic. Before she can ask, or even frown at his expression, claws grip sharp and demanding against the back of her neck. The skin is cool, sickly, and sends shocks down her spine. She opens her mouth to speak, to scream, but the hand jerks her backwards and off her feet.

“ _Keela_!” Her name rips out of Solas’ throat as she’s pulled through the eluvian and into the arms of her fallen gods.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You didn't think I'd make it THAT easy, did you? ;)


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Before she can catch more than a glimpse of the others, the hand beneath her chin forces her face towards her captor. Keela squints and struggles, eyes watering from being too close to this inferno. The god is a brilliant sunrise, gold skin and rye hair touched by scarlet. Heavy plate armor that shimmers like sunlight across water encases his enormous frame.
> 
> She can feel his name traveling through the blood in her veins, through the bones that connect her to every ancestor of the past. "Elgar'nan," she says, almost too quiet to hear.

It is cold in the prison of the gods.

The hand still clutches tight to her neck and keeps her from looking anywhere but out of the eluvian. Solas' image shivers behind the surface, violence and terror raging across every inch of his skin, as he paces in short strides like an animal caged. His gazes travels from her face to those beyond her sight. Keela cannot see them, but she can hear them.

There is metal scratching against stone that pierces her ears with high squeals. Something heavy drags on the ground meant to crush. Leather stretches, light mail twinkles like rain, solid boots stomp with purpose. The heightened breaths of beings readying for war echoes in this blank void around her, but it is the quiet laughter that pricks beneath her skin. It surrounds, chokes with its maddening lilt.

Keela struggles to turn around and face them even as her heart races, but she is a hostage with no control. Another hand clamps down with bruising force on her arm and pulls her back against hard plated armor, so cold it burns her flesh. She winces, but dares not cry out. The gods are vultures waiting for just a hint of weakness to tear her apart.

"Fen'Harel. How wonderful of you to bring us an offering." Her captor's voice rumbles through her, dark and powerful like deep thunder threatening a squall. The man speaks Elvhen and Keela calls upon the remnants left by the Vir'abelasan to understand.

Solas stops and places a mask of indifference over his features. He becomes that specter from her dreams, the one who wears pride as a weapon instead of a name. It is strange to see him as such, like a familiar story with a few words where she does not expect. "This is our quarrel and will not be settled in her bloodshed. If you take her life, be assured you will spend eternity trapped beyond there.”

There is a hiss somewhere to Keela's left and the fingers holding her tighten in a quick pulse of anger. Nails like daggers pierce into her flesh and she can't help but flinch. The coppery tang of blood wafts up to her nose and she can feel the air stir as the unseen gods hear the call of her blood.  The laughter turns to something even more sinister, the snarl of a hungry beast.

"Will you leave her here with us, then? I suppose it is a fitting thing for you, betrayer, to let another suffer in your stead. And suffer she will until you release us." 

Pain unlike anything she's ever known shoots down the length of her spine. It is sharp like a thousand hot blades cutting over and over, but she will not let a scream escape her mouth and give them satisfaction. Whimpers slip through tightly sealed lips as the power seems to assault her for years, the length of torture never abating the agony. She is close to crying out when she is finally released from its grip. Keela hangs limp, skin shaking and weeping, as she tries to force air back into her body.

Fingers grip harsh into her hair and wretch her head back. Through the haze she can see Solas is closer, fury flowing off him in heated waves, but there is worry cracking the edges of his mask. She wants to tell him to leave, to turn away and never look back, but the command sticks to her parched tongue.

"She’s a strong thing. We will enjoy breaking her, your  _vhenan_." A breath full of hate and decay moves across Keela's cheek as another god makes its presence known. The woman’s voice might have once been beautiful but it is laced with malice that raises gooseflesh. "Her torment will be a thing that lasts for centuries, for you have denied me prey for far too long."

“You-” The world inside the mirror pulses, pushing pressure against Keela’s ears until she thinks her head will explode.

“Let us out!” screeches the mad god. She grabs onto Keela’s unmarked hand and twists her middle finger until it pops. There is a moment of shocked breath before Keela feels the break and a shuddering moan tries to leave her mouth. Her torturer is relentless, leaving a few seconds for her to soak in distress until she grasps onto her next finger and yanks it backwards beyond the limits. Keela wants to scream behind her clenched teeth and barely sees the flash of a knife through the blur of her pain.

“ _Stop!_ ” Solas’ voice rings higher above the din in the mirror and then comes again softer, defeated. “Stop."

"Ah. Not so invincible when you finally have something to lose." Laughter rolls against Keela's back like ice drifted beneath her collar and she shivers.

"Will you swear to leave her be?”

“She is not the one we want, Dread Wolf.”

“Swear it!”

Keela feels the god holding her tremble with restraint. “You have our word that we will not harm her for one full day. It is more than you deserve.”

Keela catches Solas’ gaze, seeing he has thrown away the mask completely. There is sad acceptance in his eyes again, and she struggles anew against the hands holding her, letting a soft cry finally escape her lips at this new pain. She would rather die than see these monsters released upon the world, to see her lover torn to shreds by the ones he once called kin. She tries to tell him this, but all she can muster is a broken no.

Solas holds onto the jawbone around his neck as his other hand reaches out to touch fingertips against the glass. He gazes at her alone and she knows by the sheen of his eyes that he will not heed her wishes.  “I am so sorry,” he whispers before the eluvian shatters into thousands of pieces.

The world blurs with light and motion too fast for Keela to make sense of what happens next. The hands around her do not loosen their hold as she is twisted and dragged out of the eluvian with the others. When things settle back into focus, she’s pressed against a column of stone, a clawed gauntlet forcing her face towards the middle of the room. The air crackles with the power of gods finally free. It feels humid, oppressive, and dangerous. The Elven Pantheon shines in the darkness of the Fade and Keela cannot look at them for too long without her eyes burning.

Amongst their blinding ranks, she searches for Solas. He kneels on the ground nearby, arms held to the sides by two men. One is dark, skin like the coals of a furnace with a giant war hammer strapped to his back and eyes that simmer gold like cooling metal. The other could be Keela's brother save for the streak of silver through black hair and strange markings cut across every inch of flesh she can see through narrow eyes.

A woman stalks in front of Solas, wild red hair and violet eyes, with white armor tarnished by black stains and rust. A bow slings across her body while she flips a serrated dagger in trembling fingers. Keela can recognize her from the fresco - Andruil, the true betrayer.

Before she can catch more than a glimpse of the others, the hand beneath her chin forces her face towards her captor. Keela squints and struggles, eyes watering from being too close to this inferno. The god is a brilliant sunrise, gold skin and rye hair touched by scarlet. Heavy plate armor that shimmers like sunlight across water encases his enormous frame.

She can feel his name traveling through the blood in her veins, through the bones that connect her to every ancestor of the past. "Elgar'nan," she says, almost too quiet to hear.

But the All-Father hears her and she watches his clear, blue eyes cloud with anger. "Have the children fallen so far that one would address me so, as if we could ever be equals?" He tilts her head back and forth, seeing something beneath her skin. His gaze turns surprised, confused. "What has been done to the Elvhen? You do not possess the spark of immortality, yet you are most interesting. Something ancient wraps around your soul, something stolen and made to new purpose. And something else, something familiar..."

"What does she matter?" Andruil says. "Kill the thing and be done with it.”

"You promised to let her go," says another voice, more beautiful than any bard’s skill, and it ties a knot in Keela's throat that she tries to swallow down. "We do not break our promises."

"So gentle as always, Sylaise. Would you spare the Wolf too?"

"And as always, Andruil, you mistake my kindness for weakness. Fen'Harel will pay for his crimes, but not with her blood."

"Not today," another adds, tone strange like gravel scraping underfoot.

Elgar'nan releases her and Keela crashes back against the column, too worn to support herself alone. "I suggest you leave now if you can, mortal thing. You will not wish to witness what becomes of your wolf."

"No-"

His hand snaps forward and wraps around her broken fingers. Scorching flames shoot up her arm as he squeezes, lighting a fire she can’t control inside again. Keela crumbles to the floor, face pressed into the grime. The Fade wavers in and out as the pain blackens her vision. Elgar’nan walks passed her to stand with his kin. Through the curtain of her tousled hair, she watches him tower over Solas as Andruil shivers with excitement at his side.

“We should question him before the deed is done. This world…it is strange. I cannot hear the call of the Elvhen,” Sylaise says.

“We do not need him to be alive to learn his secrets. Let me bathe these stones in his blood and Dirthamen will read them for us.” Andruil grabs hold of Solas’ head, fingernails gripping tight to the bare skin to pull it back and expose his throat.

“Are you sure you want them to discover what I know?” Defiance ripples off him in waves now that Keela is safe, a sneer she has never seen curling his lips back. Andruil watches him with fierce eyes, the fingers around her dagger stuttering.

“What does he mean?” The new voice is quiet, childlike, yet manages to attract their attention. Keela watches a god of sparkling pure white approach, a delicate gold headdress twisting like halla horns from her forehead. At the sight of her, Solas’ snarl softens and she offers him a sad smile.

“Nothing. He will say anything to trick us into sparing his life,” Andruil replies.

Yet Elgar’nan regards him with renewed interest and steps closer, his stance no longer so threatening. There is something like wonderment in his gaze, a careful hope he does not want to let free. “I sense…what have you done with her, Dread Wolf?”

“I-”

“No, he must die!” Andruil raises the dagger high.

A growling scream leaps from Keela's throat as the weapon arches towards Solas. She thrusts the anchor forward, her surging anger and fear stoking it to life until the room burns with green flames of power twisting from her grasp. She does not believe she can defeat these powerful beings on her own, but there is something only she can do.

A rift opens amongst the pack of gods. They stare at it, shock stilling murderous hands, before Keela's magic begins to pull. For all their strength, they cannot escape against her fury and fly towards the whirling mass. Andruil yells in outrage, her claws trying to find purchase on anything, and Keela breathes a sigh of relief when she no longer threatens Solas.

One by one they all disappear until Elgar'nan remains. He alone seems to be able to fight against the tide of power with any success, though his feet drag slowly backwards all the same. Keela catches his gaze and sees cold vengeance in his beautiful eyes. She does not look away, matching him with all the stubborn strength of her own will, until the rift swallows him whole.

She closes her palm and seals the portal before they can find a way to return. The room falls silent, save for her labored breathing, and the still worries her. She tries to press up on the heels of her hands, but her limbs shake with weakness. “Solas?” When he does not appear, the worry turns to panic. Was she too late, did she send him away too? " _Solas!"_

“I am here.”

When she sees him rushing forward, Keela lets out a cry that catches in her throat. The lingering pain and adrenaline crash down upon her and steal away what remains of her strength. Solas slides to the ground next to her and lifts her up in his arms She wraps around him, clutching with desperation. “Solas,” she says over and over, his name the only steady point in the storm of chaos.

He makes quiet noises as fingers comb back her hair in soothing strokes until her breathing calms. Healing magic tickles down her spine and spreads through every nerve. It is cooling, calming, and chases away the aches and the foreign fire Elgar’nan left behind. Only her hand pulses with a burning pain that will not be thwarted so easily.

“I must set your fingers before they can heal properly.” He pulls away and her own misery is mirrored in his expression.

Keela nods, head bobbing at a frantic pace. “Just do it quickly.”

His touch is fast, gentle, but it does not matter. Keela groans as the first finger snaps back into place and cries out against his shoulder as the second is finished. She feels close to fainting as her stomach rolls until his healing power washes through her again, more urgent and demanding than before.

For a few minutes she can only sob into his comforting embrace until the pain and fear fall away enough for her to think clearly. Keela slumps in his arms, exhausted and clinging to consciousness. She needs to find them, fix this, but she can't keep her eyes open. "I can't, I have to..."

"Rest, vhenan," he murmurs against her skin. Magic wraps around her like a soft blanket, but she fights it with one last burst of energy.

"Solas," she says, grasping onto his neck and pulling him closer. "Don't...don't go."

He smiles and his warm eyes carry her off into the void. "I will not leave you."

* * *

 

Solas keeps his word. When Keela wakes to the soft crackling of a fire, he is there hovering above her. Her head rests in his lap with an arm draped protectively across her shoulders. When he notices her open eyes his hand gives a gentle squeeze.

"Where-" She tries to sit up, but his touch keeps her still.

"Take a moment. How do you feel?"

She breathes in deep, feeling the stretch pull at tired muscles and aching bones. Keela looks down at her hand and sees her injury wrapped in cloth and a hard splint. She winces against the lingering ache still radiating across her body, present yet far less severe than wounds she's suffered in the past. Fatigue clings to her like spiderwebs, but she knows she will be able to shake it off like so many times before.

"I'm all right." Solas cradles her hand in his, careful to avoid her fingers, and passes his healing through her skin. She sighs at the sensation, relishing the familiar rhythm of his magic she thought never to feel again. "What happened?"

"What do you remember?"

"I..." Everything comes back in flashes, bright and painful, banging loud against her memory out of order. She feels the sharp snap of her bones, the heat of Elgar'an's power slicing through her. His eyes hold universes in their depth, so strange and commanding, and Keela is nothing but a pebble to be trampled underfoot, unnoticed.

Solas watches her face contort with dismay and lifts her up to press against his side. “I am sorry for the pain you have suffered."

"I'm all right," she repeats and buries her face in the crook of his neck. "Where are we? Are we still in the Fade?"

"No. I have brought us to a place of sanctuary so you might recover in peace."

“Another of your temples?”

“Not precisely.”

Keela glances up from the swath of pillows and blankets around them. It is a room the size of her quarters in Skyhold and the white stone walls glow green from the veilfire at their feet. She can see a few items of a furniture, bookcases bursting to the seams, and an eluvian wavering with blue light. Yet it is the ceiling that catches her eyes.

Moonlight shines through thousands and thousands of small stained glass pieces. The center is a star now shining with silver light, yet Keela imagines it burns gold when daytime pours through. Colors of blue, purple and green circle out from it and at the edges hundreds of black and white wolves howl into the sky. For a moment, the world outside and the turmoil within no longer exists as she's bathed in the light of veilfire and endless colors floating from above.  

“It’s beautiful.” Unwanted, thoughts of her Keeper invade her thoughts. Deshanna kept a collection of glass statues hung with care from the roof of their aravel. Many were the days Keela woke to a world bathed in color and fractured light like she does now. She wonders if any of the artwork survives or if they lay broken in pieces like the shattered remains of her clan. Pain weaves through her heart, a heavy type no magic can unravel.

Keela retreats further into Solas’ shelter, hiding away from her memories, as his words rumble through her. “It was a gift from Mythal after my ascension, for lack of a more appropriate term.”

“What you do mean? You weren’t always…”  _a god_  she wants to say, but even though her eyes have seen the truth of it and her limbs have suffered the touch of their strength, it is still a hard thing to believe.

“No, and it is a tale I would tell you given more time, and perhaps not when Thedas is in such dire peril.”

“When is Thedas not in dire peril?” she asks and Solas’ laughter echoes across the room.

“A valid point.” He grasps onto her wrists, his thumbs making lazy circles into her skin, and his amusement quickly dies. “This should not have happened. I do not understand how they came to be in such an awakened state, nor how he was capable of reaching through the mirror. Now they are unleashed upon this world once more and it is my doing.”

“We’ll find a way to fix this.” She brings her bruised hands to his face and kisses away his words. It feels so strange to be back here after so much time apart. She was beginning to forget what his lips felt like, how his love tasted on her tongue. Keela lets their kiss linger, tracing familiar constellations across his arms, until she feels him relax beneath her touch. “Or we could stay here, forget Thedas, live for ourselves for once until the world burns.”

“Such a tempting offer.” His grin returns although they both know it could never be a possibility.  “Are you able to stand?”

They climb from comfort and Keela tests her trembling limbs, leaning against Solas until the sudden rush of dizzying lights disappear from sight. It is a slow journey to the awaiting eluvian, but she feels stronger with every step taken.

"I don't know where they are. I wasn't thinking when I opened the rift," Keela says.

"It makes no matter. I will be able to find them easily enough if they remain together."

"Do you have some sort of plan you're not telling me?"

"Only the makings of one. If I, or more accurately Mythal, can speak to Elgar'nan alone, it is possible this conflict could be resolved without unneeded destruction."

"Is she...are you..." She wants to ask how much of him is still Solas instead of the ancient god of justice, but the idea that she might not be able to tell the difference sits heavy in her stomach.

Thankfully, Solas seems to understand her hesitancy. "We are not like Mythal and Flemeth. I am merely carrying Mythal's spirit for without a body to hold it, she would pass through to the Fade and be lost in the mist. The best course of action would be to transfer her into Elgar'nan, for she could always balance his vengeance, but I do not know if he will allow me to be close enough for such a thing. Regardless, we will need to separate him from the others. If you could provide a distraction, I am confident I can pull him aside."

"Wait." Keela grabs onto his arm and stops their movement. She looks into his eyes, not exactly sure what she is searching for. "You're going to let me help you? After everything that's happened, after shoving me away from all this?"

He reaches out and wraps long fingers around the base of her skull. "I know I have broken your trust, but I spoke in earnest when I swore to remain at your side. I hope with time, you may forgive m-"

"Solas." She leans into his embrace and holds him close. Keela breathes in his scent, of pine and paint, and when his arms encircle her, she feels secure and protected, cherished and loved.

But he is right. There is thread in her heart that’s come unraveled by his actions, although it does not mean she cares for him any less. The sight of him kneeling at the mercy of the gods replays in her mind and her fingers tighten into his tunic. "Promise me you won't risk Thedas for my benefit again. They must be stopped."

“That is a promise I cannot make,” he says and Keela understands. Light from the stained glass ceiling falls in gentle waves upon his features, making him look like a piece of artwork all his own. The white light of the moon casts him in ethereal beauty, the blue and greens bringing out the plains of his face. She wishes they could stay like this forever, become a still painting ignorant of all the swirling chaos around them.

“I love you,” she whispers and it feels so much like goodbye on her tongue that she squeezes her eyes shut to keep her worries locked away. Solas brushes his lips against her forehead, atop her closed eyelids, across the angles of her cheeks. Keela sighs into his mouth when his lips venture over hers.

“And I you, Keela,” he says her name like a sweet benediction and rests his head against hers. The mark begins to sing as his hand squeezes hers and Solas turns her palm facing up. He watches the dancing flames with wonder and a grim smile she does not understand. “Your magic is shifting, I can feel it. I felt it across Thedas as you commanded the Fade. It is not an easy thing to assimilate the power of a Kindred. I would not want this for you, but there is no one more worthy if it comes to pass.”

“A Kindred? What do you mean?”

“It will be easier to explain once we find them. We have already lingered too long. Are you ready?”

“Yes, let’s go.” Keela glares at the rippling glass and takes in a breath. Together, fingers laced and eyes determined, they walk into the eluvian and leave the glittering haven behind.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keela can practically see the Fade shimmering in front of her like barely held together mist. It buckles and sways as spirits brush against it with the hope of just a taste of what lives just out of reach. She can feel their eyes without seeing them, can hear their words whispering like prayers.
> 
> Solas watches her, a knowing gleam in his eyes. “What is happening to me?”

The Temple of Mythal is bathed in moonlight as they return through shimmering glass. Keela glances around the empty well but does not see any figures lingering in the shadows or standing in plain sight. It is quiet and only the gentle chirp of insects seems to keep vigil amongst the broken stones and ivy.

“They’re here?”

“Despite their power, they are still wayward beings displaced from time, thrown into a world they do not recognize. They will linger in the places most familiar. I suspect Elgar’nan has brought them here for more personal reasons, as well.”

“He is...” Keela shakes her head.

“Elgar’nan’s anger can be tempered. It is Andruil who should be considered. She is unpredictable, unstable. She must be contained.”

When they reach the bottom of the altar, Keela turns to face Solas. “What should we do now?”

“I-”

“You’ve returned.” Abelas emerges from behind vines and flowers blanketing the nearest wall. He bows his head in reverence to them both.  “The Veil remains intact, yet the gods of Elvhenan walk the earth once more.”

“Where is Elgar’nan?” Solas asks.

“He, Sylaise and Dirthamen are in Mythal’s apartments.”

“And Andruil?”

Abelas’ eyes darken at the question. “The Harellan and the others have not been found as of yet. Perhaps they are instead somewhere outside the temple. The remaining sentinels search for them now.”  

“I would speak to Elgar’nan alone, although Dirthamen being present may work towards my benefit. If you and Keela could keep the others occupied, my chances of success will be better assured.”

“I will join the search and return when I have located them.”

Abelas disappears as quickly and quietly as he appeared. Keela’s eyes drift down to the mark on her palm in his absence. It seems to glow brighter, the light shifting up and down like an excited pet under its master’s attention. It begins to sing and the wordless melody calls to those in the world beyond.

Keela can practically see the Fade shimmering in front of her like barely held together mist. It buckles and sways as spirits brush against it with the hope of just a taste of what lives just out of reach. She can feel their eyes without seeing them, can hear their words whispering like prayers.

Solas watches her, a knowing gleam in his eyes. “What is happening to me, Solas?”

“Something that has not occurred for thousands of years. Come, vhenan.”

He moves towards a blank wall of the temple and places his hand atop the textured surface. Lines of color burst from his fingertips and spiral out against the stone like ivy. They curl around each other and form into six individuals of different shapes and colors. There are two elves dressed in heavy armor, one a sparkling gold and the other a shimmering silver. Three dwarves glittering in jewels and oiled leather stand by their side. The last is a man in simple robes, alone and apart from all the rest.

“In the beginning, there were six beings tasked with watching vigil over those that would follow. They were to inspire, to protect, to love like well-intentioned parents. Elgar’nan and Mythal were our original guardians.”

“Then who created them?”

“Mythal told me she awoke with the others in the Black City before a being of pure light and energy, something like a spirit but unlike any of this world. It remained for some time to assist, to teach and fill the land with all manner of things, until it moved on presumably to create new life elsewhere.”

“And the rest of the pantheon? Where did you come from?”

“As the children grew there would be those who excelled above their peers. Heroes, inventors, the bold and the brave. Those that fought against destiny or sought to rule it. For their legendary deeds they were offered the highest of recognition. Many clamored for the honor to be placed amongst the stars with the other guardians of their race, but only a few were ever chosen. ”

Inside the mural, an elvhen woman with scarlet hair pulls branches down from a tree to create a simple bow, while a man takes those same trees and builds shelters under the heaving swing of a hammer. Another leads a vast, valiant army over the bodies of prone enemies. The curling colors of Solas’ power reveal a room full of books and scrolls with a final figure resting atop the impressive mound.

“Andruil created weapons to help the first of the elvhen hunt and thrive. June crafted advanced lodgings, twisted metal to make even more potent means of warfare. Falon’Din was a hero without equal in wars both bloody and victorious. Dirthamen cultivated great knowledge and propelled the elvhen forward in understanding themselves and the nature of creation itself.”

"And you? What did you do for Elvhenan?"

He gives her a clever smile and in it she can now recognize the elf he was before. "I attempted to destroy it. Your people were not so wrong as to name me trickster although the truth is, of course, more complex. I however believe that is a story for another time.”

The living fresco changes back to its original images yet now the nine beings of the Elvhen Pantheon stand together while a dozen dwarves link in a lattice of stone faces. The human guardian appears, eyes cast down upon a pile of ash at his side. Something about him causes sorrow to coil inside Keela’s heart.

“The elvhen named us Kindred. The dwarves still practice the ceremony with their Paragons, although through their own folly lost the spark to create proper creatures of legend.”

Keel can hardly believe her ears, but her curiosity quivers with excitement. “And the shemlen? Where are they? The Old Gods of Tevinter, perhaps?”

“No. He was more selective in the choosing. There were many worthy of the honor, I am sure, but I believe he longed for a companion above all other things. He made but one and named her Blessed, and the humans burned her alive for it.”

“Andraste?” Keela shakes her head, thoughts spinning. “Cassandra will never believe this. I can’t believe this.”

“The truth of it sits in your palm.” Solas removes his touch from the wall and the mural drains away, seeping down the wall like rivulets of rain on glass. “You know it is no ordinary magic. You have been touched by the boon of a Kindred. It will change you, has changed you, but it will not be enough.”

“What do you mean?”

“There is a final part to the transformation, the ascension, as it was once called. When one has proven themselves in this world they must also do so in the next. They sojourn into the Fade to find the great spirits residing deep within. They are the firsts of all creation spun from eternity itself. If they find a candidate worthy, a bond is struck and a Kindred is born.”

Solas approaches her and wraps fingers around her hips. Keela doesn’t collapse into him but braces her hands against his arms, unsure. “And if they are unworthy?”

“Only those who have succeeded have ever returned from the Fade,” he answers. Keela tries to pull away at that, but he holds her still. “This is not something that is written in stone, vhenan. You do not need to complete the ritual. That choice is yours to make.”

“And this?” she asks, holding up her marked hand.

“No one has been given such power without becoming one of us or perishing in the attempt to do so. Yet you have made it your own, entwined it somehow with your natural magic so there is now no separation to be spoken of. You will never be rid of it, but nor do I think it will bring you any ill fortune after all this time.”

Keela shuts her eyes against all the new information battling for space in her mind. For a moment, she wishes she still could call upon the Vir'abelasan to guide her through these revelations. It can't be real. She can't possibly become some immortal bound to an ancient spirit and chosen to lead her people.

 _You weren’t chosen_ , she thinks. _You were an accident. Solas didn’t trust you with his secrets so why do you think he would have trusted you with his power if given the choice?_

"You are having difficulty with this knowledge. I wonder if it is because it is so difficult to fathom as it is, or if it is merely difficult to believe coming from my tongue?” he asks and when she opens her eyes she finds his are full of an understanding tempered by melancholy.

“No.” She leans forward then, welcoming his embrace and consoling him with her own. “I want to believe you, I _do_ believe you. I just...what would you have me do?”

After a pause, he brings her hand to rest against his cheek. She watches the way the anchor caresses his face and feels it soar in pleasure as he leaves a kiss upon its surface. “If you think to doubt yourself, make no mistake that I find none more worthy of such esteem than yourself, Keela. It is an irony not lost to me that one of my proudest creations was born from simple chance.”

She drops her head onto his shoulder at such a confession so close on the heels of her fear. She has forgotten how he is able to see right to the center of her. Keela wonders now if mind reading is just another thing about himself he’s neglected to mention and the ridiculous notion lets bloom a small smile.

“I would have you choose your own fate, but if you are searching for my personal opinion,” he leaves a kiss against her temple, “I would see you journey to the Fade and tame its wildest spirit. Then I may remain at your side until the sky dwindles away and the ground turns to nothing but dust. Know that no matter the number of lifetimes, one bright or a thousand strong, I will cherish you through them all.”

“Solas.” Keela sighs and wraps her arms around him, holding tight. She does not know if she could bear the weight of immortality, though to exist without limits could offer so many possibilities. Is a life with no end a blessing or a curse with no escape? “I don’t-“

“The others have been found.” They pull apart at the sound of Abelas’ voice and find him approaching. “Andruil is now in the main hall with June, Falon’Din and Ghilan’nain. I do not know how long they will remain there, or remain together. They must know we are here, but as of yet have done nothing to seek us out. They appear to be waiting.”

“We must act quickly. Keela.” Solas grabs onto her arms again and pins her with a hard look. “Do not think to engage them on your own. Andruil and Falon’Din are both warriors with few who could test them in battle over countless centuries. Separate them if you can. Use the mark to confuse them. If you are overwhelmed, you must retreat. Promise me you will not take unnecessary risks.”

“I…” When she hesitates, Solas gives her a gentle shake.

“Please, vhenan!”

“Yes! Yes, all right, I promise.”

He leans forward and leaves a kiss upon her brow before stepping back. “Elgar’nan will undoubtedly try to summon them when I make my presence known. If all goes according to plan, I should only need a few minutes, but prepare yourselves for any number of possible situations.”

“I understand. Be safe, Solas.”

He hesitates and Keela resists the urge to kiss him breathless, but she is sure she will make him stay or drag him from this temple all together if she does. They share a short look full of heavy words before he nods and walks through the same hidden alcove Abelas emerged from. She stares at the shifting flowers a moment more, unable to keep the thought that this is their last moment together from running rampant in her mind.

“Let’s go then, Abelas.”

They climb up the entrance and continue into the maze of halls and heraldry. Abelas takes her to a corner she did not previously explore and reveals another covert alcove with a flick of his wrist. They traverse into a dark hallway lit only by a small bundle of veilfire between the ancient mage’s fingers. It is cool and damp in these spaces and Keela can feel moisture dripping down against her shoulders in constant rhythms.

“I find it curious you still refer to Fen’Harel by his false name even after now knowing his true nature,” Abelas says after a time. “Did he command you to do so?”

“He does not command me in anything,” Keela snaps back. “It hasn’t come up. There have been more important things to concern ourselves with, if you can imagine.”

“Of course. What occurred beyond the Veil?”

“I convinced him to give up his plans, but the gods weren’t sleeping like he thought. Elgar’nan pulled me into their prison and bartered my life for their freedom. Solas should’ve left me there and saved us all this trouble.”

“I would agree, but I am glad to see you have so far survived this ordeal.”

“I’m sorry, was that something like affection in your voice just now?”

She sees a small smirk tug on his lips in the ghostly light. “Do not read into it too much, Inquisitor.  I’m sure they would eventually have broken free of their chains and we would be left without a powerful ally in this fight in your absence.”

Despite his words, Keela smiles herself. “Of course.”

“We are close. The archers will be able to occupy them for some time until their arrows are gone or their lives are spent. We-”

“No, Abelas. Do not let them engage just yet. I think enough of the Elvhen have perished already, don’t you? You might not think my people are worthy of your guidance, but I will not see more of our heritage lost.”

They stop before a portion of the wall bereft of ivy and several layers of dust. Keela glares at it and envisions the beings waiting beyond. “I am going to try to summon some friends to distract them first and it would be best if no one else was near just in case. When I send them away, or if I am unable to summon them at all, then have your sentinels engage from a distance when I say.”

Abelas appraises her for a moment before nodding. “As you wish. This panel will open into the hall to the right of the main doors. I will continue on and join the others to await your signal.”

Keela takes a few seconds to check her gear, making sure her staff is within easy reach and the daggers in her boots are secure. She breathes in and out, steady breaths mixing with the rampant pounding of her heart. She is not used to approaching situations without a full plan and plenty others to compensate should the need arise, but there is no time for such things now.

“Inquisitor.” Abelas’ voice jolts her from her thoughts and she turns, surprised to find him still nearby. There is softness to his eyes and she wonders if it’s a trick of the veilfire. “I may have misspoken when I claimed we are not of the same people. This world is a broken, sorrowful thing, but there is still light to be found.”

The sudden praise catches Keela off guard and she can only offer a thankful nod to him in reply.

“Good luck,” he says and disappears beyond a bend in the dark.

With a deep inhale to solidify her resolve, Keela pushes the swirling gold symbol on the wall and watches as it retracts with a quiet moan. Fresh air and voices flow against her face. She crouches, quietly and slowly inching her way into the grand entrance of the temple.

“They are Elvhen here,” the gentle voice of Ghilan’nain speaks. “True Elvhen unlike the mortal from before. Why do they hide from us, I wonder?”

“We should not linger here,” Andruil growls.

“Patience, da assan.”

“Don’t coddle me, Falon’Din. I would know if _they_ are still where Fen’Harel hid them away. His betrayal could lead to our victory, if such is the case.”

“And if they are gone what will you do then?” Ghilan’nain asks. “Find something new to hunt? Will it ever end?”

Andruil gives no answer to that and Keela dares not wait any longer. She glances down at her palm and tries to remember the fury that made it possible to summon the spirits days ago. The mark vibrates, whispering out to the Veil in a language she is coming to know. Keela sees it shift in front of her, fading in and out like sunlight poking through heavy clouds.

 _Are you there?_ Keela calls out to the void.

A shape pushes against the curtain and her own face appears. The spectre that led her to the Black City cocks its head, smirking like a snake. _Oh, so you haven’t forgotten us? How wonderful._

_I need your help._

_You mean our servitude. You sing of freedom but would bind us in chains. We will not go easily this time if you would have us battle the Relics._

_Relics?_

_The great spirits bonded with your Kindred. They are the closest thing to gods we have, our guardians, and it is both a suicidal and sacrilegious notion to try and wage war against them._

_I only need their distraction, not their lives. No one need perish here today._

_Then I ask again, why should we help you? You stopped Fen’Harel from cutting away the Veil and we remain withered and without. Why would we continue to offer you assistance with no hope of something in return?_

_I swear I will find a way to mend what was broken so we may all live together, even if it takes this lifetime or,_ Keela swallows down her fear, _if I must spend ages doing so. Look into my heart and judge my words, spirit._

The being hovers, shimmering, considering, and Keela holds her breath. _Your heart is true, but I wonder if it will be strong enough? Call to us. We will answer._

The spirit falls away and the Veil seals with a whisper. Keela inches towards the corner of her hideaway to find her so called deities standing in a line. Falon’Din kneels before a broken pottery while Andruil paces and fumes. Ghilan’nain sits in a peaceful poise and watches her fellow Kindred stalk back and forth. June is nowhere to be found.

“I will not stand here and-” As if pulled by strings, as one they suddenly straighten and turn to glance into the temple proper.

“Elgar’nan requires us,” Ghilan’nain says and Keela knows it is time. She lets the power of the anchor soar free and wild. It crackles, bends, pulses and there can be no hiding or going back from it now. The Kindred pause in their exit, heads cocking to the side to discern where this new noise originates. Keela does not wait for them to find her and pushes her hand forward.

“Help me,” she begs and lets the Fade split open wide.

Spirits of every manner pour through the rift and swarm like a flock of birds around the room. The gods of Elvhenan stare, stunned, feet stilled on the stone below. Their otherworldly attackers do as Keela wants and simply distract their opponents with cries, screeches and claws racking at empty air instead of attacking. Andruil is the first to react, angry and unafraid, as she raises her arms into the air. From her body a great, fire winged hawk rises and screams with a vengeance. It is monstrous, larger than any spirit Keela has ever seen, and every apparition in the room stops or steps away from this Relic. It is indeed fearsome but beautiful, shimmering from smoke to something solid like dancing fire.

Keela pushes more magic into the anchor and urges her small army onward. With her encouragement, a few brave souls approach to harry the hawk before pulling away and more are soon to join in the foray.

“What is this?” Falon’Din yells out as a ruffled owl bursts from his back and hovers with heavy wings above his head. It screeches as a pack of spirits circle just beyond its talons. A many horned halla, broad chested and built more like a noble elk, emerges in front of Ghilan’nain and bows its head down to skewer any that dare amble close. The Relics seem to call out to their lesser comrades, to question or chastise it is difficult to tell, but Keela’s influence on her charges is stronger at the moment than these gods of the Fade.

When Andruil’s hawk takes flight to give chase, Keela almost laughs to see the unbridled rage on the huntress’ face. She lets a few more minutes pass until a wraith gets too close to Falon’Din and almost loses an arm to a furious beak. Whatever Solas’ plan, by now it has either failed or succeeded. The anchor’s tune changes as she calls again, and every spirit stops its assault and quickly escapes back into the Fade. With a flick, Keela closes the rift and spares another moment to watch her fallen gods before returning to the hidden passageways.

They glance around, stances still agitated, but in the coming still they reach out their hands and beckon their spirit companions to return. Keela watches, amazed, as Andruil and Falon’Din’s birds dive and disappear into flesh with fierce, strong calls. The halla spirit is gentler, rubbing with affection against Ghilan’nain’s hand before returning to its rightful place, and Keela wonders what it must be like to feel so connected to a spirit. Is it what she wants, too? She could become something else, someone else, and the thought of losing herself after drowning in the voices of the Vir’abelasan gives her another reason to refuse this ritual. But can she afford to remain as she is?

With a final glance, Keela moves to retreat when a rumble moves beneath her feet. The tremendous doors to Mythal’s template slowly open with protesting groans and a lone figure walks proud and bold into the jaws of awaiting monsters. When Keela recognizes who it is, she cannot help but let out of a quiet groan of annoyance.

Andruil steps forward with her bow already in hand and eyebrows turned down in distaste. “Leave, shem. This is no place for you.”

Morrigan stops and places a hand on her hip while the other holds her staff close. “Tis you who should leave before great ill befalls you. I will not stand for such to remain on hallowed ground, especially since it is you who defiled it once before.”

“Who are you?”

“I am Mythal reborn, pieces of her power stitched together over the years and forged anew. You, however, may call me Morrigan.”

“Impossible! She would not give her power to the likes of you!” Before Keela can think, Andruil lifts her bow and summons a blazing arrow from thin air. It is away in a flash of searing heat and barrels towards Morrigan only to be batted away like a harmless fly by a great, scaled tail. A spectral dragon, skin glistening silver and amethyst, arises from behind the witch and lets loose a mighty roar that shakes the very foundations.

“It cannot be,” Falon’Din says. The beast glares at the three Kindred before spiraling back into Morrigan’s body, but Keela can still hear it growling from within.

The fury on Andruil’s face sours to something far more dangerous. “You are not worthy of this honor.”

“Your Mythal seems to have thought differently, no doubt thanks to the influence of my mother. I have won the honor of her companion in the process, a feat no one unworthy could dare accomplish. Pray tell, Andruil, is there yet another reason why my presence vexes you so? Might it be the knowledge also passed down through the ages you might fear?”

Andruil narrows her eyes, the madness in them growing ever larger. She turns to her kin. “Will we allow this? Whatever decision was made must have been made out of folly or coercion. She is not Mythal. She cannot speak for her. The shems have stolen much from the elvhen of this world and now they would take what little remains! I for one will not stand for it.”

The huntress does not wait for a response. Smoldering arrows fly in rapid succession towards Morrigan. The human mage twirls her staff and they ricochet to the side, one coming dangerously close to Keela's face. Andruil approaches, never ceasing her deluge of endless arrows. Morrigan grits her teeth and calls forth a bolt of dark lightning in retaliation that Andruil is able to narrowly avoid. It continues across the hall and pounds into the far wall, pieces of marble and ash exploding into the air.

The two women collide, daggers flashing against hardened wood. Keela knows Morrigan is battle trained from her time with the Hero of Ferelden, and while both their spells are forces to be reckoned with, it becomes obvious that the human is outmatched in fighting ability. A blast of fire sends Morrigan skidding across the floor, staff momentarily knocked from her fingers and head bleary. Andruil flips a dagger in hand as she licks her lips, eyes scorching red.

For one brief, selfish moment Keela considers leaving the shemlen to her fate. Morrigan always seems to mettle in things that she claims to understand yet ends up wanting, wrong. What she has declared now will shift the very fabric of Thedas for she is the first Blessed human in centuries and it may be a kindness to let her fall here, now, instead of following in Andraste’s footsteps. The chances either of them will survive if Keela attempts to interfere are low, as well. Is this constant interloper worth the risk?

“Fasta Vass,” Keela mutters before launching herself from her hiding place. “Abelas, now!”

Bowstrings snap and their noise fills the room like hundreds of angry bees set to defending their nest. Arrows rain down and splinter before Andruil’s feet to stop her attack as Keela comes to stand between the witch and the huntress.

“Inquisitor,” Morrigan says, unable to hide the relief in her voice.

“Wonderful timing,” Keela mutters as she casts the aegis of the rift around them, threading more power into the strange barrier so nothing may slip through.

“You,” Andruil growls as an arrow comes to her side. She lets out a snarl and turns to find the sentinels hidden in the cracks above. Her snarl becomes a screech as her body shifts, grows, glows a vibrant red. In an instant she becomes a scarlet tipped hawk twice as large as any animal of its kind Keela has ever seen. She would wonder at the marvelous combination of spirit and elf if it weren’t the sense of fear Andruil’s screams send through her veins. The hawk flies towards the upper levels of the room and begins to thread through pillars of stone to claw at the sentinels.

“Come, while she is distracted,” Keela says and lets her barrier drop so that she and Morrigan might escape. They are close to the secret exit when a figure moves to block their path. Falon’Din holds out his sword pointed at Keela’s chest. He peers at her with swirling hazel eyes, the long, jagged battle scar down the right side of his face twitching as he works his jaw in contemplation.

“Going somewhere?”

“I do not want to fight you.”

Falon’Din’s laugh is a rumble. “It would do you little good either way, so be thankful I have no desire to see you dead at the moment. If you are here, he cannot be far behind. Where is Fen’Harel?”

“He-”

“Inquisitor!”

Keela feels the heat and can only summon a small barrier before the inferno crashes into her. She twists, thrashing out with fire, stone and shield and manages to stay upright against the storm even though her feet slide across the worn floor of the temple. It takes all her will to keep the barrage from overwhelming and consuming her flesh. When the smoke clears and Keela can take a breath, she finds Andruil facing her once more.

“You,” she says again, vitriol spilling from her mouth as she stalks closer. Her lips curl up in malicious glee. “I can see why he might choose you. There is a fire not unlike my own burning in your breast, but you are a pale imitation. Did you know that we were lovers? I’ve had Fen’Harel for more years and more ways than you could ever imagine. I wonder if he ever thought of me while he took you.”

Keela laughs, swiping a hand across her forehead to remove the sweat and ash. She knows she shouldn’t press her advantage. She should run, slip into the Fade, do anything but bait this monster, but she has never been one to back down from a fight. “The great huntress resorting to tavern insults that would make a jealous lover of me? You’ll have to try harder than that.”

The blades in Andruil’s fists flash. “As you wish.”

There is no time to wonder what has happened to Abelas and the others, to call out for help from whoever could hear, to summon her tired magic for aid. Keela can only concentrate on keeping Andruil’s knives from piercing her skin as the other elf tries to slip through the defense of her staff. She strikes out, swinging her weapon to push Andruil away, but the warrior is quick to press forward again, too quick to hold at bay for long. The Inquisitor thinks of abandoning her staff all together and lashing out with the daggers hidden in her boots, but she is more skilled with her staff and might never be able to reach them in time. She needs to escape before it is too late.

The mark pulses, reminding her of those waiting just beyond the world, and she knows she will only have one opportunity to make this count. With a bolstering yell, Keela summons every scrap of magic she can muster to send a blast of willpower out towards her opponent and watches as the Kindred is blown backwards several feet. Through the tendrils of her power she raises the anchor at Andruil – only to find the huntress missing. There is a bright flash, a heavy rush of air, and then she reappears right in front of the Inquisitor.

There is no time to reaction before Andruil drives her dagger between Keela’s ribs. She gasps and blood begins to fill the void of her breath. Hands reach out blindly, grasping onto Andruil’s armor to steady weakening limbs against the blaring pain. The Kindred helps keep her upright, but there is no kindness is her eyes. There is only a cold victory.

“An exploding barrier spell to catch me off guard? You’ll have to try harder than that,” Andruil mocks. She leans forward and presses her mouth to Keela’s ear. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure he joins you soon.”

The knife twists and tears inside and Keela cries out, her voice choked by the life seeping up her throat. Andruil steps away and Keela cannot manage to keep her feet. She plummets to the ground, chin banging against the hard stone, but the pain is muted compared to the flare in her chest. A shaking hand presses into the wound as red paints the grey beneath in flowing rivers and she tries to breathe in, to call on what little healing magic she knows, but she cannot escape the pain and panic, the sudden creeping cold shuddering through her body.

 _No, it can’t end like this!_ she wants to scream, but the words are replaced by blood when she opens her mouth. Nails claw for purchase as she tries to escape it all, but her strength is the first thing to leave her. Keela collapses, face pressed into the cool surface, but she doesn’t feel it as her skin goes numb. The temple blurs, fades, until all she knows is the struggling thump of her heart. It fights with the last stubborn flames of her will. It skips, flutters, fails and in the quiet that follows Keela drifts away into the dark.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Solas does not remember crossing the room. He finds himself kneeling beside her body and staring into eyes that no longer see. He does not realize how much vivid life they truly held until he sees them now, empty and drained. Trembling fingers reach out to close them and Solas cannot stop the gasping sob that claws its way up his throat to feel her skin already so cold.

It has been a long time since Solas last walked the hidden halls of Mythal’s temple. Once he could have navigated their weaving lanes with eyes closed, but he finds he must stop at some turns and set his mind to the task of remembering. Tucked away deep inside, he can feel Mythal pulling him onward, filling him with an urgency to reach their tandem goal. He calls upon their shared knowledge to maneuver through the final twists and reach the forgotten private quarters of the goddess.

He slips from behind a heavy wall trapping and emerges into a hallway full of debris and dust. The forest has reclaimed much of this space, but Solas can see voids of footprints and broken branches to indicate where his kin have trekked. He follows their traces, quiet yet quick, and only slows when he hears voices drifting through the still air. Cautious, he peers around the next corner and finds the prey he has been searching for.

He spots Sylaise first. She sits on the edge of Mythal’s eroding bed, hands folded atop of one another as her dark, blue eyes gaze at Dirthamen. He crouches down on the floor by her feet with a hand stretched out to the ground below. The white marks cut across his skin glow softly to pulse with the beat of his heart.

“No one has been here for some time,” he says, pulling away. Elgar’nan comes into view, impressive armor shining even in this dull light, and the spirit inside Solas croons at the sight. “We will learn no more secrets now than we did all those years ago.”

Solas straightens his shoulders and steps out into the hall. Sylaise notices him but does not alert the others at once. She tilts her head, the long, brown braid of her hair falling over her shoulder, and he wonders what she must be debating. Their relationship was ever strained since the beginning – he the youthful rascal and she the sincere protector. He imagines she would like the wolf he has become now, if he has but a chance to show them all the truth.

“We must find Fen’Harel. Only he may reveal what has befallen this world,” Elgar’nan says. Sylaise comes to stand between them, gaze still locked on Solas’ approaching form. It is then that the other two Kindred notice her distraction. “What-”

Solas sees the flash of Elgar’nan’s eyes and then he is moving against his will, the hard surface of the temple cracking into his back as the elder god throws him against it. A hard plated greave presses with unrelenting force into Solas’ throat and cuts away all breath. Stars dance across his eyes, but he merely fights the panic rising inside instead of reaching out to combat this god.

“Are you going to kill him or question him?” Sylaise asks by their side, her lyrical voice calm despite the violence. Elgar’nan presses a moment more, a personal war raging in his clear eyes, before he growls and steps away. Solas sucks in a deep breath and bends over to stop the hall from spinning.

“You have much to answer for,” Elgar’nan accuses.

It takes a few tries before Solas can manage words again. “And yet not as much as you might think.”

“Speak not in riddles, Fen'Harel. I have no more patience for your games. Tell me what you have done to this world. Tell me what you have done with Mythal!”

“I sealed the door between this world and the spirit world after I locked you away. It was a needed precaution to make sure the Forgotten Ones could not plague Thedas in your absence, nor would you be able to influence the elvhen in any way. They would be free from our oppression and vengeance, but,” Solas glances away, “I did not anticipate all possible outcomes of this decision.”

Sylaise laughs, bereft of true amusement, while Elgar'nan shakes his head. “You turned them into shadows of former glory.”

“The shemlen were quick to take advantage of their weakness. I did not think-”

“Yes, you did not think!” Elgar'nan yells.

“And you would not listen!” Solas shouts back. “You were destroying both worlds in your blind lust for revenge. There was nothing you would not have torn asunder in your quest. At least I provided a chance, however small, for the elvhen to survive the carnage you brought.”

“You were going to undo what you had done,” Dirthamen says. “Why did you stop?”

“For that girl,” Elgar'nan answers.

“There is great strength to be had when a common bond is struck. I was too lost within my own shame and prejudices to see it before even as I walked among the other races, fought with them. She has given me hope. She  _is_  the new hope for not only our people, but for all of Thedas. We cannot go back to what was before and I am not the only one of us to believe so.”

Solas holds out his hand and pulls forth the being resting inside. Mythal eagerly climbs up his veins and swims through his blood at the beckoning. The soul of the great Kindred swirls like blue and silver fire atop his palm, flames reaching out with desperate hands towards Elgar'nan. The anger on his face wipes clean as he steps forward, arm coming up, but he stops himself short.

“Is this another of your tricks, Wolf?”

Solas places his staff against the wall and lifts his other arm in offering to Dirthamen. “Please.”

The ancient scholar wraps fingers around Solas’ forearm. The symbols on his skin begin to glow again, letters culled from languages spoken and those that no longer in existence. There is little that can hide from Dirthamen’s immense knowledge.

He removes his touch as the marks fade. “He speaks the truth.”

Elgar'nan comes close once more and lifts a hand with only a moment of hesitancy. Tendrils of Mythal wrap around a finger and the god lets out a sound of amazement and disbelief mingled together. Sylaise follows suit and laughs, true and light, as flames lick against her skin. Dirthamen is slower to reach out, but as Mythal envelops his wrist a bright smile lights up his features.

Solas glances at each of their faces in turn. It has been too long since he last saw such happiness and wonderment amongst his divine family. Keela may have planted the fragile hope growing within his breast, but to see them like this causes it to bloom beneath the radiance of their shared joy.

“There is more and I fear it is not as pleasant a thing,” Solas says. “It was not the dark ones that dared to take Mythal from us. She was betrayed by one she called closest kin. One of us.”

“Who would dare?”

“Who would benefit most from a war with the Forgotten Ones? Who sought them out as madness clawed beneath skin and tainted the soul?”

Elgar'nan’s eyes darken, lightning and thunder rolling across those expansive seas. “Andruil.”

“Yes.” Solas extends the reach of his arm. “Please, take her. Mythal will show you the truth and I do believe you have been separated for far too long as it is.”

Mythal crawls into Elgar'nan’s hand before he can even accept. He lifts the ball of flames to his face and breathes in. Wisps enter his nose, his eyes, his throat and Solas knows what it is like to briefly drown in the touch of another’s soul, and Elgar’nan will make it so they may never be parted again. When the transfusion is complete, the Kindred’s eyes have changed. One is still a startling blue, but the other is now cleaved in half by a vibrant coral color Solas has not seen for millennia. She will never be what she once was, never walk among them as a force with no equal, but she is not altogether lost.

“Mythal…” Elgar'nan breathes out and there is relief, comfort, a joy lost to the ages, making every sharp part of him soften.

“Is it true?” Dirthamen asks.

“It was indeed our huntress. She has led us all astray.” Elgar'nan looks towards Solas. “I am sorry I did not listen to you all those years ago, Fen'Harel. So much loss could have been avoided.”

“Perhaps. What matters now is-” A sharp, phantom pain sticks itself between Solas’ ribs. The last strands of power connecting him to the anchor break away and he clutches at his heart as it thumps strangely. It feels heavy, hard. Broken.

_Keela._

Solas grabs his staff and pushes past the others to bolt down the hall. He does not bother with the hidden passages any longer but rushes through the gray stone corridors towards the entrance. Panic carries him quick around corners as much as it cripples all thought but the need to find her.

“Fen'Harel!” Sylaise calls after him and somewhere in the back of his mind he realizes the others have followed on his tail. “What is it?”

He does not answer, nor does he care if they continue to pursue. With one final turn, the main hall comes into view and Solas bursts into the room with the others not far behind. The ground is scorched, broken pieces of arrow shafts littered across the space. A large chunk of one wall lays broken and boiling nearby. June stands close to the threshold, eyes wide, as if he too is seeing it all for the first time.

Elgar'nan is the first to react. He is a golden blur as he rushes at Andruil standing by the doors. With muted surprise, Solas sees that Morrigan of all people opposes her before he finally finds what he has been searching for. Keela lays close to the far side of the sanctum amongst rubble and ash, unmoving. Something dark and terrible spreads beneath her, staining the ground and painting his heart with pain.

_No._

Solas does not remember crossing the room. He finds himself kneeling beside her body and staring into eyes that no longer see. He does not realize how much vivid life they truly held until he sees them now, empty and drained.  Trembling fingers reach out to close them and Solas cannot stop the gasping sob that claws its way up his throat to feel her skin already so cold.

He tries to speak her name, to call her back from the void, but the ache in his chest spreads to fill his body with a heavy, choking weight. Hands slide beneath her and lift Keela into his lap. Solas rocks back and forth, burying his face in the softness of her hair, uncaring as drying blood seeps into his tunic. It does not matter. He will never be able to wash it from his soul.

If he cries, he does not know. He could be screaming to the heavens, but there is nothing but solid silence inside where once her love sang free. There is nothing.

 _There is nothing_.

“Let go of me!” Andruil screams as Elgar’nan reaches for her neck. He lifts her off the floor and she scrambles to support herself against his mighty arms.

“You took her from me, harellan. It was you!” Andruil shakes her head. “Look into my eyes and deny it now.”

The huntress looks and what she finds makes her own violet orbs blow wide. “M-mythal,” she manages to say before Elgar’nan squeezes harder.

“Stop! What are you doing?” Ghilan’nain pleads and places a hand on Elgar’nan’s armor. He glances down at her and the younger Kindred gasps.

“She is the one who drove a spear through our beloved Mythal’s back. She has betrayed us all. Not Fen’Harel, nor even the Forgotten Ones. Her. Her madness has brought us to this bitter place. She must be punished.”

Andruil kicks her legs, flailing as hard as she can as her face turns the same shade as her hair. Elgar’nan releases his hold and she collapses onto her knees, a long, hard breath filling her lungs with sweet, stale air. He looks towards where Morrigan still stands. “I suggest you do not interfere, Blessed one. Be gone. We will find you soon enough.”

“To do what with me?” she asks, staff coming across her body.

“Mythal and her host did not toil for centuries only to have their efforts discarded at first opportunity,” Elgar’nan replies. “There is much we must discuss, but this issue takes current precedent. Go.”

Morrigan hesitates a moment, glancing between Solas and Elgar’nan, before she relents and slips through the crack in the mighty doors. The pantheon returns their attention to their fallen kin in the wake of her absence.

“What will we do with Andruil, then?” June asks. “We could lock her behind the glass as Fen’Harel did to us.”

“She deserves to die for what she’s done,” Sylaise says. “She killed Mythal! She killed one of us.”

“Can she be truly blamed for a sickness we turned a blind eye to?” Falon’Din asks. “If Mythal had dealt with her properly to begin with, none of this would have happened.”

Elgar’nan growls. “How dare you-”

Solas stops listening to their bickering. Gently he places Keela back onto the ground, pausing to run fingers down her cheek, before reaching down to pull the dagger from her boot.  

“You will do nothing, as you’ve always done,” Andruil says as she returns to standing and wipes spit from her face with a foul smirk. “It has always been me fighting, bleeding. Me protecting us while you reclined in temples growing fat and useless! Me! M-”

Solas appears behind her in a flash of green and drags the blade across her throat. Blood fills the air and lands on Elgar’nan’s chest piece before he and the others can escape the onslaught. Andruil gasps, clutching at her neck, but this is a battle she cannot win. She turns, clawing at Solas’ clothes, her blood soaking through to join Keela’s, and he watches with unwavering gaze as she sinks to the floor. He watches her struggle for air as Keela must have done in her last moments and wishes he could breathe life back into her. He watches the fire in Andruil’s eyes dim and die and wishes this death could bring back the spark in his lover’s eyes.

The weapon clamors to the ground with the deed completed and the noise shatters the stunned silence around every elvhen. June shakes his head with disbelief or disappointment. Dirthamen is too busy watching the swirls of blood still flowing across stone with curiosity. Discontent causes the scared flesh of Falon’Din’s face to turn a darker shade while Sylaise looks triumphant, proud. It is Elgar’nan and Ghilan’nain that peer back at him with sorrow.

“Fen’Harel,” the mother of the halla whispers as she steps through blood to reach him. Long ago she begged him to spare her creator’s life, but now he can see the knowing resignation in her green gaze. Solas pulls away before her comforting embrace can reach him and returns to Keela’s side. He bends down to picks her up to lay across his arms while managing to grab hold of his staff as well. His jaw clenches as he looks at her face, her expression in deceiving repose. She is so beautiful even in death, but it is the beauty of a polished tombstone over what once shined so bright.

Solas stamps his staff against the ground and the Fade yawns open around him. He hears the Kindred yell for him, voices mixing in confusion and alarm, but the rift swallows him faster than they can react and returns him to the hallowed halls of the Black City. The empty eluvian stands at his back, the device he used to change the world waiting before him. He disregards it for the moment and falls back to his knees to cradle Keela close to his chest.

She smells of copper and lavender, of death and life. Solas runs a finger down the slope of her nose, lingering over the bump there. He never thought to ask of its origins although he immortalized it countless times before in sketches. Was it there from birth or a childhood accident? Somehow it is this simple thought that undoes him. He spent so much time hiding, pulling away, and for what purpose? The outcome is the same regardless. He wasted so much time.

Tears spill free, cries maul the fabric of his throat with the savagery of his misery. Every beat of his heart takes him further and further away from her and he would sacrifice a thousand worlds if he thought he could make hers beat once more.

“Keela,” he whispers, voice ruined from his anguish, and in the still of the Fade it echoes back with all the things he left unsaid. He could not fool her and only failed her. It should have been him to pay this sacrifice for all his misdeeds. Keela would have made this broken world thrive, the indomitable spirit of her will flowering up to fill the cracks he made so long ago. She would have found a new purpose, a new family, a new love. What is there left for him in this smoldering ruin?

Time has no meaning here and he weeps until he runs dry. With a final kiss to her brow, Solas places her with reverence down upon the ground. He takes a breath and every memory of her stretches and grows inside. The graceful way she moved, the brutal conviction of her mind. The kindness in her eyes, the power in the grim line of her mouth. The smile she saved for only those worthy of her of a place in her heart, the way she screamed in silence when she fell apart in his arms.

Solas lets his breath go, lets her go, and walks towards the large artifact swirling with electric power in the center of the room. It is the lock to the door he made between the worlds and he is the only key. He reaches for the jawbone around his neck and slips it from its ever present place. The wolf inside him howls as he drops it to the floor and crushes it beneath heel.

Blue and green power in wisps of billowing smoke burst from beneath his foot and dive into his body. The magic that he kept hidden from this world blazes under his skin like starlight and marks him as a true Kindred. He welcomes it, wrapping it around himself like an armor against what has been done and what he will do next. The world Keela wished for lies mingled on the slabs with her blood. That future is beyond his grasp, but he can bring about a world where the elvhen are restored to glory no matter the cost. He failed her, but he will not fail them again.

Solas reaches out and lays a hand atop the device. Threads of his strength weave inside and it begins to hum in reply, pieces unlocking and moving after millennia of stillness. He pictures all the other artifacts spread across Thedas waking up from their long slumber and singing out to one another. The cool metal begins to grow hotter, the gold vibrating as the point of no return builds beneath palm.

“Forgive me,” he says to the spirits and souls of all he betrayed, to her, and braces himself for the world to change once more under his touch.

A roar echoes through the Black City around him a moment before the room flashes in white and scarlet. Solas throws his hand up to block the brazen light as pressure pushes against his ears and buzzes through his mind. He feels a pull inside his chest as this new power storms throughout the room, for it is not of his doing. It is wild, bold, immense. Solas has no more time to think upon it as the ground buckles beneath him, tossing him back and forth like a ship on the waves and he crouches down to steady himself.

There is nothing but the roar and the rage building and building around him until he feels he will be crushed by it. In the next second, the silence descends so quickly he cannot help but gasp against the sudden emptiness. He lifts his head, wary, but there seems to be no change to the Fade. The Black City is still tainted, the throne left unoccupied, and the artifact ready for its task to be completed.

He rises and waits for the world to swallow him whole, but it is as if the event never occured. He takes a step forward and raises his hand, intent upon finishing his quest before something else might dissuade him, when there is a subtle shift behind him, a breath, and then –

“Solas.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keela takes a step away from the spirit, from this imposing decision. She thought she was prepared to do whatever was necessary to save Thedas, but she did not expect this. To be left somewhere between life and death for eternity. Chained forever to another choice she would make for others. Was she never meant to be free?

One moment there is darkness and the next the ether of the Fade curls before her gaze. She knows she can’t be here physically, but it seems fuller, louder, than it usual does in dreams. She breathes in, but doesn’t feel air enter her lungs. Her heart should be pounding in panic at the thought, but there is only silence in her chest. She glances down at quivering arms and watches them shift from solid to shear like sunlight between swaying tree limbs.

_Wake up, wake up_ she cries in her mind, but she doesn’t wake because she isn’t sleeping. She’s…she’s…

“You’re dead.” Keela looks to find her spirit twin perched upon a blackened rock. She can still feel the dagger, see the malice in Andruil’s eyes, but everything else is starting to become muted, hazy like a distant shore. She’s drifting away from the shackles of life to something else, somewhere else.

“No,” she whispers. She bends over and clutches pieces of ash and rubble between her fingers, a painful cry interrupting the quiet of the Fade as she tries to hold on to something, anything against the realization of her own demise. There is still fight left in her veins but she does not know how to war against the inevitable. “I can’t…I have to-”

“The time for doing anything is passed, I’m afraid,” that voice that’s hers and isn’t says as the apparition picks at dirt beneath fingernails. “You’ve already saved the world once so there’s no shame in defeat now. Let some other well to do fool make the next sacrifice.”

Keela bows her head against the harsh ground and wishes she could feel the pebbles dig into her flesh. She did all she could, pushed until there was nothing left. Maybe it is right. The world is full of heroes when pressed and she has grown so very, very tired. Does she not deserve to finally rest?

Peace settles over her being. Somewhere nearby music begins to play, sweet and gentle, welcoming her in its embrace. There are voices singing out to her and she hears Deshanna’s call mingled in among their coaxing. Keela could be with her clan once more, free of every burden she picked up when she walked away from them all those years ago. She could be happy without any demands from a world that takes as much as it gives.

_Keela._

Solas cuts through the symphony, silences the tempting music. Her name is full of a sorrow that chases away the calming waves surrounding her and aching with a love that holds her tight against the pull dragging her away.

“No!” Keela pounds her fists into the rumble. She clings to whatever magic she has left and attempts to anchor herself to the ground. She can’t let go, not yet.

The spirit hops down from its place and stalks closer. “Why? Because of him?”

“I left him alone. He…he’ll try to destroy the Veil again without me there, I know it. It will be the end of Thedas.”

“The Thedas you know. The world has already been remade once so why not again? You think the humans will perish but there are a tenacious species. Weeds that refuse to die. They may yet survive.“

"And grow hateful of us all anew. It will never end,” Keela says and pushes off from the ground. Limbs wobble, weak and tired, but she manages to stand and face the spirit. “I have to do something.”

“And what would you do?”

“Anything, everything. I have nothing left to lose.”

“You do not know that, da’len.” The spirit tilts it head, considering, before looking away into the distance. Keela follows the gaze to find the Black City standing sentinel on the horizon as ever. “We spirits have not been idle all these years. While many fight to find cracks in the Veil, twists themselves towards possession, others have searched for a more permanent solution. We are close.”

It turns to her again and holds out a hand. “Come with me.”

Keela hesitates. “What may I call you?

“Would it be too strange to call me your own name?” The spirit laughs. “I suppose so. If you must, Vhera will suffice. Are you coming? You have very little time to waste.”

She has a thousand more questions, but Keela tucks them away for now. Vhera is right for Solas has no doubt stumbled upon the carnage in the main hall by now. Guilt squeezes her heart to imagine him kneeling beside her body, shaking fingers touching cold skin.  _No unnecessary risks,_ he had begged and she hadn’t listened. This is all her fault.

Keela reaches out and everything flashes white. She knows they must be moving through the Fade, but her sensations are dulled with death. There is only that sweet song tugging, tempting her to accept whatever it promises. It would be an easy thing to close her eyes, lay down and let the void swallow her whole, but she has ever been a stubborn thing. Keela holds on tight to her companion and the tiny spark of life still left inside.

The Beyond rushes back and places them within reach of the Black City. It stands framed by an empty archway of rock and bone towering at their side. Keela can hear a quiet hum coming from the structure, can feel a steady pulse of magic rippling through the ground beneath her.

“We want to be free to roam the worlds again, but we do not wish for the humans to leave these lands. Their dreams are blazing, beautiful and terrifying, and we have never felt so alive in return. We believe there might be a way for all of us to not just survive, but thrive.”

Hope beats between Keela’s ribs. “How?”

“The humans suffer from being in the raw presence of the Fade. We need an object of both worlds, something to balance and soften the transition. Instead of a wall, we would create a bridge in its place. We have searched long and hard for such an object and have finally found it.”

“What is it?”

Vhera approaches and stops just a breath away. The spirit lifts its hand and places a finger against Keela’s chest. “You.”

Dread seems to seep from the touch and into her heart. “What?”

“You are the link between everything. You can bend the mortal world and the spirit realm unlike any creature that has ever existed, even more so than any elvhen Kindred or dwarven Paragon. Your potential could be limitless. You can be the bridge to bring us all together.”

“What must I do?”

Vhera gestures towards the architecture. “Walk through there.”

“That’s it?”

“No. If the bridge crumbles we will lose our way. It must be permanent, you must be permanent. You will not be able to leave here.”

“For how long?” Keela asks, although she already knows by the way Vhera’s eyes have softened.

“Until Thedas sinks into the sea.”

Keela takes a step away from the spirit, from this imposing decision. She thought she was prepared to do whatever was necessary to save Thedas, but she did not expect this. To be left somewhere between life and death for eternity. Chained forever to another choice she would make for others. Was she never meant to be free?

“Is there no other way?”

“There is no other you.”

“I…” How can fate ask this of her? She wants to crumple to the dust, disappear to whatever awaits beyond still whispering its song. She wants to turn back time until she resembles the woman Vhera shows her, vallaslin still curling beneath her eyes and unmarked from the hundreds of actions that brought her here. She wants to hide away in warm arms, shed the titles and responsibilities of legend and be herself, be  _his_. “Will I endure all this alone?”

“I do not know, da’len. We may be able to reach out to you, to speak to one another. Or you may become like a great oak rooted into the fabric of the world, silent yet strong. I only know what must be done.”

Keela sighs, eyes shimmering, heart breaking beneath the crushing demands of destiny, but there is steel in her spine yet to face what must be done. “You are positive that this will work?”

The spirit reaches out and squeezes her shoulder and despite the apathy of the afterlife, Keela can feel warmth in the touch. “You will not make this sacrifice in vain, I promise you.”

Keela stares at the arch and watches it blur before the curtain of growing tears. She lets them fall, unashamed. She entered the world crying, fighting to be seen and heard, to exist, and she will leave this one just the same. Her feet take a step forward, then another, and it feels like every inch is weighed down by the dreams she is leaving behind, a future fading as her path becomes clearer. When she reaches the threshold she pauses, taking a breath her body no longer needs but her aching soul requires.

She thinks of Cassandra, Cullen, Dorian and Bull. Of Sera, Briala and every elf of Halamshiral and the Exalted Plains. Cole, Wisdom and the spirits who answered her calls. They will all be free, capable. Equal. It will not be easy, but they will be together and she knows what can be accomplished when Thedas works as one. This is what she can give them as the last act as Inquisitor. If her life can save theirs, then so be it. If her last, free act is to sacrifice herself for their freedom, then she will bear it with a full heart.

Her thoughts turn to Solas and Keela lets out a quiet cry as she remembers his face, remembers the gentle touch of his fingers. He will never forgive her for this, but he of all people should understand the burden of doing what no one else can. She lets their love sooth the trembling tethers of her resolve and closes her eyes, picturing him there to greet her on the other side.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers and steps through the arch.

The world beyond is quiet. She expects to feel something, a pulling, pressure, anything, but there seems to be no difference. Did it not work? She opens one eye, then the other. The Fade still lingers dark and terrible before her and no chains hold her to any purpose. Keela turns to find Vhera smiling with a look of exultant triumph.

“I don’t understand. Did I do something wrong?”

“No.” The specter moves and the stolen body its wears shifts, pieces of Keela’s appearance changing to something else. Flames lick over skin and a great animal emerges from the ash and smoke. It is a black panther with green flames like tuffs of fur atop every paw and the sun in its eyes. Its thunderous voice fills the twisted sky and Keela feels it vibrate through every fiber that fills her being.

When the echoes of its power dwindle to whispers, it speaks again. “I am sorry for the deception. I had to be sure of your heart. Those rocks are nothing more than rocks, but you are what I have been waiting for, for a long time.”

“You’re…you’re a Relic.”

“I am and I have found you very worthy, noble one.” The spirit comes closer until Keela must tilt to stare into its steady eyes. “However, I was not lying when I said you had the power to remake the world, but you needn’t do it alone. Accept my companionship, become a Kindred like none before, and together we can create a Thedas with no limits.”

The creature bends it head down and its body trembles in excitement, claws digging into the earth ready to spring towards new horizons. In the presence of the Relic, Keela forgets all her fears of becoming something else. They seem inconsequential compared to the oblivion she thought to sentence herself to.

There is an untamed power within the depths of its gaze that calls to Keela’s wild heart. She can recognize herself in this creature as much as when it wore her skin. She will not become someone else. She will become what Solas promised what seems like thousands of years ago in the ruin of her sorrow and in the clutch of dreams. She will become something  _more_.

Keela bares her teeth in a grin and rushes forward, burying herself into thick fur.

The world around them contracts, expands, ignites with the combined fire of their unconquerable desires. They embrace one another, meld until they create something new and break apart into unyielding pieces forged from eternity itself. Keela feels stretched across the universe, filled with a thousand lives, dreams and worlds that are and have yet to exist. New magic surges through her, bright and bold, but somehow utterly hers, and as a roar splits the Fade it is impossible to tell whose voice gives it life.

When Keela opens her eyes again, she does so bonded to her body once more. It is different, full of boundless power and connected to an ancient predator of the Fade, but she looks down and recognizes these hands. They shine beneath the skin and mark her as a Kindred, but they are hers still. She rises from the ground and takes a breath and even the stale air of the Beyond tastes sweet to her lungs. She is  _alive_  and as her gaze finds his form in the room before her, her heart soars. He is different too, a beacon in the blackness, magic swirling and barely contained. She can hear it howling, calling out to the kin within.

“Solas.”

Keela watches his shoulders stiffen to hear a voice thought lost. He turns, slowly, and she cannot wait another second. She collides with him as he pivots to face her, arms wrapping tight around his neck, and tucks her face into his neck. Solas freezes against the embrace and she understands why he hesitates. Not many return from the dead.

She kisses the spot just beneath his ear she knows he loves. He takes a sharp breath and finally returns her touch, crushing her body against his. Hands run across her blood caked clothing, graze across warming flesh, before he pulls away to look at her. Disbelief and wonder war across every inch of him, sorrow and hope a violent storm in his gaze. “You are alive?”

Keela’s smile widens as she brings her hands up to wipe away the tears collecting in the corners of his eyes. “I am.”

“I do not…” His fingers tighten into her hips as he peers closer, deeper. His mana reaches out for her own and she welcomes the touch with open arms. “You are a Kindred.”

It feels like the wildcat brushes up against her legs with affection. It is strange to feel the presence of another, as if the spirit is just a step behind her ready to reach out at a moment’s notice. She wonders what it will be like to leap through the world on four paws. A selfish pride not her own fills her heart as a contented purr rattles through bones. If she didn’t know any better, it seems like her companion is gloating.

Solas lets out a bark of laughter. “The panther? Of course. Only you would be able to tempt that one.”

“You know of it? But how-”

“Keela.” He silences her questions by bringing her close again and kissing her forehead, the pulse inside her temple. Solas rests his cheek against hers as his restless fingers draw idle shapes into her back. “You were gone and I thought… _Keela_.”

Her name is a breath of shattered release and she holds on tighter. “I know, I’m so sorry. But I don’t think you’ll be free of me so easily now.”

She feels him smile. “I can think of worse fates.”

Lips seek one another, gentle but insistent, and the heat of his adoration restores her to life in a way nothing else possibly could. They have been here before, caught in each other’s arms and on the brink of utter change. It seems ages ago, another life, and she supposes it was. She has been reborn and it is time for their world to change as well.

Keela steps out of his embrace and turns him to face the artifact once more. A green haze encircles the structure as parts move across the humming surface. The anchor twitches inside her palm, willing and ready to rend the worlds into something new. “I know what must be done, but we cannot do it alone.”

She lifts her hand into the air and the Fade cracks and splits above their heads. Keela can sense the others and pulls on newly crafted threads connecting them all. In showers of sparks and flashes of lightning the guardians of Thedas appear around the artifact. Falon'Din readies his sword at the sight of her, but the others gaze with curiosity and awe to see her breathing, thriving as one of their own.

“Inquisitor.” Morrigan steps forward, relief in her eyes. “It seems your talent for thwarting the impossible continues to impress. I am…pleased to see you.”

“Why have you brought us here?” Elgar'nan asks.

“I want to destroy the Veil and make something new of both worlds. I know it is possible. Fen'Harel changed Thedas once, the magisters warped the Fade with their meddling. I can undo the damage, end the darkness. Create something where everyone may thrive.”

“I am sure Fen'Harel believed the same. What you call salvation may turn into the undoing of them all,” Dirthamen says. “Would it not be better to leave things as they are?”

“Or return to the ways of the past,” Falon'Din adds.

“No, we gained nothing from the seclusion of our past and now our people will surely perish if things remain the same. The spirits have been crying out to deaf ears, turning upon one another and upon themselves. We cannot go back nor leave it as it is,” Elgar'nan says. He pauses to nod at Morrigan. “And for the first time in a thousand years, a Blessed exists in this world. The time for change is now.”

He turns to Keela. “You have my power, Sister.”

“And mine,” Ghilan’nain agrees quickly as she touches Solas’ arm. He gives her a wide smile before covering her hand with his own. One by one the others agree. Falon’Din is the slowest to acquiesce, staring into Keela’s eyes until he finds something worthwhile in her stubborn strength.

Only Solas remains and when Keela turns to him, expectant, he shakes his head with that familiar look of fond annoyance. “Do you truly need me to say it?”

“I can’t always make exceptions for you,” Keela replies.

He leans over to leave a gentle kiss against her cheek. “Vhenan,” he whispers and it is all the answer she needs.

Keela places her marked hand atop the artifact and the others follow her lead. The power of the anchor surges across its surface, twists around their fingers and sings throughout the room. The Relics of the Fade rise from the bodies of their companions and join in the song. A fox yowls, a bear roars. Keela catches the eyes of the great, black wolf before it lifts head and howls long and loud.

The power of the guardians’ rushes into her veins and the device beneath her palm grows hotter and louder. She lets it build as long as she can until she is trembling with the effort not to burst apart. When the panther against her back snarls, Keela finally releases their united energy.

A fountain of light erupts from the artifact and shoots up through the Black City into the sky above. It spreads across the expanse and in its wake the darkness is replaced by an endless emerald bereft of sickness. Flowers begin to bloom where only withered stalks once grew, clear water fills the empty, cracked bowls of the earth.

Tar and grime lift away from the mortar and stone of the Black City to show gleaming gold beneath. The Fade grows brighter and stronger around them, humming with a life and light it hasn’t witnessed since the greed of humans descended upon this place.

Keela changes the tune of the anchor and opens a rift to the mortal world. She makes it grow and grow, stretching it beyond the room and the temple, beyond the size of the Breach and far into the reaches of the Fade. The fabric of both worlds fights back, unwilling to unravel so easily, and Keela grits her teeth against the backlash. She knows she can do it, she can, and they are so close, but-

Solas places his hand over hers. She glances up, finding pride in the smile on his lips, love in the luster of his eyes. He nods and she feels a surge of strength flow from his touch into her veins. With their shared hope fluttering in her breast, Keela takes a breath, closes her eyes, and changes everything once again.

 

_Now[this](http://jessicapendragon.tumblr.com/post/123616525679/he-calls-himself-fool) should make more sense. ;)_


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keela glances down and finds there is only the smooth lines of her bronze skin now. The anchor is gone, the magic pulled from her veins as a sacrifice for what she has created. It is strange to see it missing, but in this world bursting to the seams with magic again, with the new power raging inside, she has no need of it anymore. The Fade is merely a step away.

Skyhold stands still as the Inquisitor finally returns. The wind blows through the courtyard and through the folds of her simple dress, but the whispers of her tale have long since reached their ears through swifter means. The air shimmers around her, the soft glow beneath her skin like candlelight moving with every step she takes towards the main hall. She is changed, but she is not the only thing.

Spirits large and small stand with the mortal members of the Inquisition. Most humans still huddle together, wary, but the spirits weave their way through the elves present, hover near dwarves with excited curiosity. It has been millennia since they felt magic stirring in the Children of the Stone. 

There is no fanfare this time as Keela pauses to meet her advisers halfway up the stairs. The scar in the sky is healed, the Veil lifted away to reveal a new world, but none are quite sure if this will be a victory just yet. The leaders of the Inquisition acknowledge Keela with nods and bows, questions barely contained on their lips. 

Keela turns to face the quiet crowd and watches as one by one, every elf bends to one knee. From her travels back to Skyhold, she knows the Elven can feel the change more astutely. She has made their new Arlathan cover every inch of Thedas and beyond, but it is not only for them any longer. 

The spirits sing around them, glowing like fireflies, and the Relic inside purrs with pride. Humans, Qunari and the Dwarven glance around at their comrades before bowing low at the waist to their Inquisitor. They do not all understand what has happened and she will not leave them to wander alone no matter what title she might possess.

She looks towards her comrades. “We have much to discuss.”

The Inner Circle stares at her from the other side of the table. It reminds her of that meeting weeks ago when she clutched a broken piece of glass between her hand, but now she has felt the fabric of worlds slip through her fingers, can feel the Fade hovering just a step away through an open door.

“We have heard the most interesting rumors, Inquisitor. Would you care to tell us what has truly transpired?” Vivienne asks. 

“I destroyed the Veil.”

“You did this? You really did this?” Sera screeches. “Demon shites floating around, mages turning corners and blam, arse up in the Fade. It ain’t right!”

“Sera-”

“And you had no right to do it! All for your stupid Elvhen glory. What about the rest of us? The world was fine the way it was, yeah? _Normal_. This is not normal.”

“I know you’re scared-”

“ _Sane_  people would be. You were supposed to be sane, but now you’re just power drunk like the rest of them. You’ve-I…fuck this!”

Sera races passed from the room and slams the door beyond Josephine’s room. Keela isn’t surprised by the reaction, but she had hoped all of them would hear her out until the end. In the echo, she lets out of a sigh. “Anyone else?”

“I will reserve judgment until you have given your full explanation,” Vivienne says.

“I hope you have a good reason for all this, Boss,” Bull adds.

Keela tells them of her journey through the eluvians and into the Fade. Of immortal gods released and the cold grip of her own mortality. Her discovery about true Paragons, Kindred and Blessed stuns them all into silence, some awed, some confused. Others wearing disbelief like armor. 

“Inquisitor, what you’re saying…” Cassandra shakes her head. “How can it be true?”

Keela approaches her friend and reaches out to touch her arm. She is thankful when Cassandra doesn’t jerk away. “I didn’t believe it at first either but I am living proof of my words. Your Maker  _is_  real. He did not create the world, but he did watch over you, loved you. He might still. Your belief is not a lie, Cassandra.”

“And the demons? What about them?” Bull asks.

“Have there been many demon attacks?”

“We’ve had a dozen or so incidents in the immediate area since all this happened,” Cullen answers. “Scouts report that most were defeated easily and in some cases…it seems spirits joined in to help before disappearing.”

“These beings hovering outside are no more dangerous than the ones we encountered with the Avvar. There will always been demons who grow too greedy on our emotions, but most spirits do not want things to go back to the way they were,” Keela explains. “The Relics will watch over them as best they can and we will need to be vigilant as well. And who better than the Inquisition to root out those who would abuse our new situation?” 

Dorian waves his hands. "What you've done to the source. There's no need to draw from the Fade. The power is here, in the air around us. I can barely even begin to theorize what this will do to the mages in Thedas, to everyone."

"Looks like you've lost the monopoly in that market too," Varric motions to her hand, a small smirk on his lips even as his eyes still regard her with cool scrutiny.

Keela glances down and finds there is only the smooth lines of her bronze skin now. The anchor is gone, the magic pulled from her veins as a sacrifice for what she has created. It is strange to see it missing, but in this world bursting to the seams with magic again, with the new power raging inside, she has no need of it anymore. The Fade is merely a step away.

"I do not have all the answers." She steps forward and runs fingers over the map of Thedas. The expanse always seemed so daunting to her before, but now she realizes just how small their place in existence is. “Things are changed, will continue to change. It will not be easy. There will be new battles to face, new enemies who will rise. I did not make this decision lightly, but I believe it is our best chance for a future for all.”

Leliana is the first to speak again. “There is already panic across Thedas and to make known these truths you’ve discovered as well…you have made my job that much harder, Inquisitor.”

“We need to act swiftly, in any case. The longer the leadership of Thedas wavers the more chaos will spread. The only matter is where to begin?” Josephine asks.

“You should decide on my position first. I will not remain Inquisitor if you do not wish it. You trusted me to make the best decisions for Thedas and if you think I am no longer capable I will understand. Considering what I am and what I've done, it might not be the best place for me anymore. I will await your decision.”

The doors shut with a deep groan behind her. She cannot count the times she has run through this hallway yet it all seems new now. Magic drifts like currents through flecks of dust and pockets of sunlight. Even as she can feel the heavy stone beneath her feet, she can also reach through the eyes of her Relic as it stalks through the Fade in search of wayward prey.

Eyes scan the great hall for Sera's lithe form, but the other elf is gone from sight, perhaps already gone from Skyhold's walls. Keela imagines more will follow soon enough. The mortal strings of her heart ache with all the unknown losses to come. She knew there would continue to be a price to pay for her actions and can only hope her former allies will not all become possible foes.

Bare feet cross into the gardens and dig into the lush earth. She can feel it pulsing, breathing, and greedily sucks in the scent of early flowers. The world is blooming right before their eyes and her heart races to think of all the wonders that will grow in the time to come.

"Don't get near it!"

Keela follows the trail of frightened voices to find a mother clutching a boy tight. A spirit floats nearby, curious fingers reaching out but otherwise unmoving. There are others watching the exchange with skeptical eyes but they all glance up when Keela makes her way forward.

“What seems to be the problem?”

“Oh, Inquisitor! These things, they’re everywhere in Skyhold!”

“They are drawn to places of power such as this.”

“Is it…safe?”

Keela holds out her hand and the spirit eagerly reaches out to feel the touch of a Kindred. Its tendrils curl about her arm and waves of warmth enter her skin. She can feel its consciousness brush up against her own and sends a polite greeting. The spirit coos, wisps of its body flashing bright in a happy display.

“Yes, it is safe.” She bends down and beckons the boy forward. He shrugs from his mother’s worried hold and with little fear lifts short arms up towards the wavering being. Laughter, clear and joyful, fills the gardens as they touch and Keela smiles. “Spirits are just like us. There are none who are wholly good nor evil. Thankfully, it is much easier to tell which ones should be avoided from the start. Mages can tell the difference right away, but I can show anyone how.”

The evening passes into night as Keela teaches those that would listen. It is not long until the lantern lit gardens sing with the songs of spirits and laughter of children running rampant between their glistening forms. There are some humans that stand by the edges, or leave the area altogether, but many try to accept what should be impossible. They still believe in their leader and she prays she has not betrayed that trust even now.

“Inquisitor.” Cullen and Cassandra appear before the door of their small chantry and beckon to her.

“Have you decided?” Keela asks as they step inside for more privacy.

“There were…some disagreements, but the majority would like you to continue your role as Inquisitor,” Cassandra reveals. “We will need your skills as well as your leadership in the months to come.”

"Who else have I lost?"

"Varric will be leaving tomorrow to return to Kirkwall because, and I quote, 'if shit's going to go down, it will be there'," Cullen informs with a wry grin. "The Iron Bull will remain until he hears word back from Seheron. Lady Vivienne had plenty to say about your decision, but is choosing to stay and assist for the time being."

“We will no doubt suffer our fair share of trouble from all this, but we will weather it as always,” Cassandra adds. “We stand behind you, Inquisitor.”

“Thank you. Then I will stay until I am confident the Inquisition is capable and ready for another to lead it forward.”

“And then what are your plans?”

Across worlds and through the bond that weighs more than any anchor could, a wolf howls long and deep. She smiles at her friends even though they cannot hear.  “One thing at a time. Come. Thedas needs us once more.”

They spend long hours in the war council creating, dissecting, altering plans for the immediate and further future. It is an easy rhythm for the Inquisition to fall into after so many endless nights attempting to stay one foot in front of Corypheus. There is an excited air hovering of them instead of the constant threat and even Keela’s staunchest opponents begin to soften as the possibilities for peace continue to grow.

Keela stifles a yawn behind her hand as they seal the last missives and send the last messengers for the time being. “Well, it’s good to know you’re not so far above the basic necessities. If you become too much, we can still sneak up on you in your sleep,” Dorian murmurs into her ear.

“If you can manage to catch my Relic unawares too,” she replies. The others slip from the room until it is only the two of them and one troubled Seeker. Cassandra frowns down into the map of Thedas, gloves curved into fists atop its surface.

“Ah, of course,” Dorian continues. “How…how does it  _feel_?”

She lifts her hand up to watch the subtle glow shift beneath her skin.  There’s a universe coursing through her veins, stretching with infinite power, but it feels immediate, hers. Like she has always existed as such since time began. “I have yet to test the limits of my newfound abilities, but I feel,” she pauses, smirking. “Fine.”

Dorian laughs. “You are insufferable.”

“Have you been to the Fade since all this occurred?” she asks.

“Yes. It is remarkable.”

She turns her attention back to Cassandra and walks to the woman’s side. “Cassandra?”

The Seeker startles, turmoil twirling in her steeled gaze as she glances up. “Yes, Inquisitor?”

Keela holds out her hand. “I’d like to show you something.”

Her friend hesitates a second before accepting. Keela slices at the air with her other hand. The room splits and bright sunlight evaporates the darkness around them. The Fade envelops the three of them in its warm embrace. Gone are the lurking shadows, the pools bubbling with poisonous slime. There is lush blue grass beneath their feet, a comforting green sky above. It is strange, but there is only wonder swelling inside instead of fear.

Cassandra’s fingers tighten around Keela’s grasp, a gasp slipping sharp from her lips when her wide eyes take in the gleaming city behind them. The spires of the Golden City are restored to all their splendor, the whole doors thrown open in welcoming to any pilgrim.

“Is that…? You did this?” Keela nods and Cassandra’s face transforms with the softening sheen of her eyes, the beautiful smile breaking through a joyful laugh. “To see the place where the Maker once lived in all its glory…”

Keela doesn’t correct the name. It doesn’t matter right now. “You can go inside if you wish.”

“Truly?”

“Of course. Dorian, why don’t you and Cassandra take a tour?”

She watches her two friends climb polished steps and disappear into the expansive hall. There are more, mages and others brought on their arms, walking through the rolling hills and peering inside the doors of the city. It all seems worth it to see the awe in their eyes. Laughter and song fill the Fade and a well of emotions grows inside her heart to feel this land restored. 

The candles are burned down to their bases by the time Keela enters her room. Infant light caresses the edges of the sky to chase away the blackness of night. She is drawn towards the brightening horizon growing outside on the balcony. Ages ago she climbed those stairs and stood in this spot after saving the world from utter destruction, heavy with the burden of a thousand voices and the memory of one that was missing. Now she shoulders different struggles, faces a future of her own creation and there is hope in her breast instead of pain.

Now she is not alone.

A comforting touch wraps around her hips and Keela leans into the strength of his chest. Solas leaves a gentle kiss upon her shoulder before resting his head against her own. "Did I do the right thing?"

She feels him grin into her hair. "Perhaps I am not the most appropriate person to ask such a thing considering previous choices."

“Perhaps.”

He holds her closer as dawn breaks over the mountains and with the warm caress of day’s first light on her skin, Keela closes her eyes and smiles. Whatever will come, they will face it together.


End file.
